Agreed, even handing this over to NATO countries would be preferred to the noble but false idea that "every country is equal!"

Might just be that China and Russia don't trust the US not to use this control to harm them, e.g. seizing domains as part of sanctions.

Don't be naive. That may be part of their motivation, but they would want control for censorship purposes even if they didn't fear harm from the US.

Government controls which would enable censorship have been proposed at meetings of the International Telecommunication Union, and have gained significant support. Notably, the proposals are supported by countries known for internet censorship, and opposed by the United States.

It is a pretty obvious fact that internationalized control of internet governance will make censorship more likely, and acceptable, than US control does.

Here is just one example: https://rsf.org/en/news/new-treaty-signed-not-all

> Reporters Without Borders reiterates its appeal to ITU member countries to preserve the Internet as a place of freedom, as a place for the free exchange of views and information. Concern also focused on article 5B of the treaty concerning spam, which says: “Member States should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication services. Member States are encouraged to cooperate in that sense.” The problem stems from the fact that, to block this kind of content, governments will first have to identify it and will therefore have to use Internet control tools. Some governments do this already, but such action has never been recognized in a UN treaty. So this article sets a precedent which governments that have little interest in freedom of information would be able to use to justify the deployment of filtering and blocking mechanisms.

Here is another: https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/blogs/itu-wcit-and...

> A recently released ITU document summarizing various proposals to modify the existing ITU regulations (“ITRs”) confirms what folks have been saying and leaking for some time now. The Russian Federation, various Arab states, and others have submitted proposals that would expressly ratify the right of member states to disrupt communication in the name of national security, and to limit the ability of parties to route around censorship or communicate anonymously by providing members states the authority to determine routing paths and to prevent “misuse and misappropriation of numbering resources.” (See, for example, proposed MOD 30 & 31A – but there are numerous other proposals that could achieve the same end).