China tries to develop a world ‘based on censorship and surveillance’ | Privacy News

Human rights group warns that the Digital Silk Road is allowing China to export its brand of digital authoritarianism around the world.

China is exporting its model of digital authoritarianism abroad with the help of its far-reaching technology industry and massive infrastructure projects, offering a “best practice” model to neighbors like Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam, warned a human rights watchdog.

In 2015, two years after launching its massive Belt and Road initiative, China launched its “Digital Silk Road” project to expand access to digital infrastructure such as undersea cables, satellites, 5G connectivity and more.

Article 19, a UK-based human rights group, argues that the project has been about more than just expanding access to WiFi or e-commerce.

The Digital Silk Road “is as much about promoting China’s technology industry and developing digital infrastructure as it is about reshaping Internet governance standards and norms away from a free, open and interoperable Internet in favor of of a fragmented digital ecosystem, built on censorship and surveillance, where China and other networked autocracies can thrive,” the watchdog said in a report released in April.

The 80-page report describes how the Chinese state is inextricably linked to its technology industry, a key player in the Digital Silk Road project, as private companies such as Huawei, ZTE and Alibaba serve as “proxies” of the Communist Party.

China has signed dozens of technical standard agreements with 49 countries participating in the Belt and Road, while other countries in the region, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand, have agreed to new communiques with Beijing on digital infrastructure.

The Asia-Pacific region is particularly important to Beijing, Article 19 said, as it has “strategic significance for China as it deploys next-generation technologies and seeks global partners in normalizing its authoritarian approach to Internet governance.”

Some countries, such as Cambodia, have modeled their digital governance on China in accordance with Article 2019. Since 2021, the Southeast Asian country has been working to build a “National Internet Gateway” in the style of China’s “Great Firewall.” which limits access to many Western media outlets, Wikipedia and social media sites like Facebook and X.

Others also expressed concern about the project.

“The Cambodian government says this will strengthen national security and help crack down on tax fraud. But the impact on Cambodia’s network connections will affect anyone who connects to those networks, which could have serious consequences for social and economic life, as well as potentially endanger freedom of expression,” warned the Internet Society in December .

Nepal and Thailand are both reportedly interested in building a similar security barrier under Article 19, and have played an active role in monitoring Tibetan and Uyghur ethnic minorities living abroad on Beijing’s behalf. .

Under President Xi Jinping, the line between the Communist Party and the Chinese state has become considerably blurred. The Party has also deeply extended its influence into the private sector, with cells established in more than 90 percent of China’s top 500 companies in accordance with Article 19.

These companies, including technology giants, have been drafted into Beijing’s “united front” influence campaign to improve China’s image abroad and expand its global influence, Article 19 said, despite promises that they are independent of the State.

Concerns about data, privacy and potential influence campaigns have helped fuel an effort in the United States to ban TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned video app. Those behind the Protecting Americans from Controlled Applications of Foreign Adversaries Act argue that the app could allow the Chinese government to access user data and influence Americans.

Security concerns have also affected the businesses of companies such as Huawei and ZTE, not only in the US, but in other democracies, including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In the US, both companies were designated “national security threats” and banned from building critical infrastructure.

Beyond China’s borders, closer ties between the state and technology companies have also raised questions about how issues such as data privacy or censorship will be handled abroad by Chinese technology companies, which operate undersea cables that give them control. de facto huge swaths of the global Internet. traffic.

Article 19 stated that it was “plausible that China would share such data with allied authoritarian governments or exploit it as part of its influence operations on others. Without greater transparency and oversight, it is impossible to dismiss these concerns.”