Time to position Australia in an online world Digital technologies are rewriting the rules that once governed international engagement, writes Danielle Cave.
A ustralia exists in a world well and truly on its way to digital saturation.
While we are likely decades away from the terrifying concept of "peak digital", a complete renovation of how the public, organisations, governments and countries engage with and influence one another is occurring all around us.
Almost two-thirds of the world's 7.4 billion people are unique mobile users. Globally, one in three people are active social media users and 85 per cent of these are accessing accounts from mobile phones. The changes occurring in our neighbourhood are even starker. 
With 94 per cent of the Asia- Pacific's 4.1 billion citizens on a mobile phone, it is the most mobile- connected region in the world.
If we stitch together the social media populations of North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa we still don't arrive anywhere near Asia's 1.2 billion users.
But the ways in which digital technologies are impacting the globe, and hence Australia's place in it, is a more interesting and complex story than our proximity to billions of online users. The real story is understanding how these online users are disrupting international relations and what that means for Australia.
Within hours of the recent Orlando terror shooting, Islamic State members and sympathisers took to their digital medium of choice, encrypted chat app Telegram.
Using the tool to encourage others to re-create the attacks, messages and memes were quickly shared and circulated. Among the targets suggested:   July's Toronto gay pride parade.
Last year, in one of the largest cyber developments across the world, China deployed a new online warfare tool that, according to academics at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, represents a significant escalation in state-level information control.
Called the Great Cannon, the tool is an offensive attack system that is linked to the Great Firewall, China's domestic censorship tool.
This new capability attracted very little media attention or analysis in Australia. One exception was a Lowy Institute blog post by academic Sarah Logan. In Logan's words "this capacity and willingness to conduct powerful attacks on sensitive material outside the Great Firewall demonstrates the extent of the Chinese government's ability to control political discourse outside its borders".
There is a growing appetite from state and non-state actors to both tighten the screws on cyber censorship while concurrently leveraging the internet to serve their interests.
A recent 1.5 track dialogue in Moscow between China and Russia's top internet censors discussed strategies to further limit and control online information.
Russian politicians and officials used the occasion to call for Chinese-style cyber censorship to counter Western influence. Meanwhile Russia is increasingly in the spotlight for its systematic propaganda and online disinformation push into Europe.Then there is digital diplomacy.
The Indian government is now one of the world's most dynamic actors in this space, with Prime Minister Modi's government taking a co-ordinated and proactive approach to promoting Indian soft power and engaging in public discourse.
Simultaneously, the Indian government leads the world in requests to remove content from Facebook.
Whether we like it or not digital technologies are disrupting and rewriting the rules that once governed how international engagement took place. And it is imperative Australia invests far more in understanding this. Why? So we can counter unwelcome cyber developments while taking advantage of others.
In Asia, businesses, brands and media agencies are flocking to chatbots to engage mobile-savvy populations and tens of millions are signing up.
Incredibly easy to program, chatbots give organisations a direct route to end users on themes of their choosing. Most importantly, the user is the curator. It's not hard to imagine how Australia could benefit from this.
New tools like these give governments an added avenue for international outreach and the perfect vehicle to expand diplomacy and influence opinion in Asia. Australian businesses could use such tools to promote their products, connect with customers and shape brands.
Universities could better tap into key international markets and stay connected with former students as they progress through careers.
The Asia-Pacific region is there for the taking. More than a billion social media users live on Australia's doorstop and we should be engaging them daily as they interact with friends, news, products, concepts, narratives and new ideas.
These developments, many of which are happening in real-time, should be consuming immense resources within Australia's international policy community. Advisers, trade officials, academics, politicians, intelligence officers, think- tankers, military personnel and diplomats should be encouraged to work on innovative ways to reach, engage, study and influence these users.
But how can we do that if as a country we haven't yet grasped how the proliferation of internet technologies has completely changed the rules of international relations?
With no plan in place, little policy thinking, a lack of expertise and only minimal publicly funded research, it's hard to believe Australia is well positioned to take advantage of the information age. Until there is an appropriate public investment in this area by the winner of the election, Australia really is flying blind in international cyberspace.In order to pull Australia into the 21st century the government's intended international cyber strategy needs to go beyond the concepts of cyber security and official engagement. While very important, neither account for the fact that technologies have forever altered how Australia interacts with the world and the world interacts with us. This international strategy needs to set out a funded plan for how Australia can better understand, shape and capitalise on being a part of the most digitally dynamic region in the world.
Only then can we begin to leave behind our days as a digital minnow and truly become a digital player in a world now online.
Danielle Cave is a PhD scholar at the ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. This is an edited abstract of a speech she delivered on   June 16 to an ANU symposium to mark the 10th anniversary of specialist academic blog, New Mandala.