China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’ (DSR) has recently been making waves in not only the domain of technology but also politics, economics, security and surveillance. DSR is a much underdeveloped concept. In a basic sense, it refers to the increasing significance of the digital and technology infrastructure particularly (but not exclusively) pertaining to China’s rolling out of such infrastructure across Asia and beyond. The CSIS article [China’s Digital Silk Road] addresses this topic. The article is the transcript of some speeches about this topic at CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies).
Matthew P. Goodman, one of the speakers from CSIS, starts with the argument that DSR is ‘much like other hard infrastructure that’s being built across the Eurasian super continent and beyond’ and includes, among other things, fiber optic cables, satellites, and other infrastructure that supports information and communications business. Western political and intelligence circles have shown serious concerns about the (cyber)security ramifications of such developments as evidenced by the recent Huawei news stories.
Hirobumi Kayama, representing the Japanese government, categorizes projects under China’s DSR in three domains: telecommunications infrastructure, e-commerce, and smart city projects. He also refers to the ‘digital leapfrogging’ in the ASEAN and Indian economies. The rapid rise of start-ups and sharing businesses in China and South East Asia is of particular significance. Asia is embracing this digital transformation wholeheartedly. Alibaba recently provided Kuala Lumpur with its City Brain service for the smartization of the city, the first instance of a Chinese company offering smart city services abroad. The Chinese and more recently the Japanese are also investing in successful start-ups and companies in South East Asia and India. China is also making strides in the domain of submarine communications cables. According to Hillman from CSIS, China has become the landing point, owner, or supplier of 11% of such cables globally and 24% of planned cables. One major cable route is planned to be completed by 2020 to connect China to Africa via China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is the flagship corridor of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The question is whether/how such digital infrastructure projects will translate into strategic opportunities or challenges for various actors. The recent stories of Huawei and ZTE and the general context of ‘Made in China 2025’ show that we are nowhere near answering such questions yet. What is certain is that technology is going to be increasingly enmeshed with geopolitics and geo-economics.
M. Forough
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