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Abstract: The inevitable conflict between freedom of trade and protection- ism is more pronounced in cyberspace and there is an urgent need to strike the right balance between protection of national security interests and the promotion of free trade and communication. The international community must develop a legal regime that is ideally suited to regulating cyberspace activities, learning from the regulatory measures that were developed in the last century to deal with conventional forms of trade and communication. This article examines how essential national security interests and lawful rights of other nations may be reconciled, with particular reference to art. XXI of GATT that was adopted by World Trade Organization. Through that discussion, it identifies the essential legal rules and principles that underlie the existing regulatory framework that can be adapted to regulate cyberspace activities and highlights the central importance of good faith in ensuring fair- ness in all transactions. It examines the origin and evolution of the require- ment of good faith in the Chinese civilisation and what the Chinese classical writings identify as the content of this universal precept. It submits that the good faith must form the foundation of the norms that regulate the digital environment and that the formulation of the scope and application of the con- cept of good faith may be informed by Chinese legal philosophy.
Keywords: article XXI of GATT, Chinese traditional culture, cyberspace gov- ernance, freedom of trade and communication, good faith, national security exceptions
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