Traces of China’s Digital Silk Road are now visible in Zambia, Africa, where the government has installed Internet monitoring and blocking equipment.
The Chinese government hopes to become a world leader by promoting the Digital Silk Road, but the accompanying security and values challenges are worrying Europe and the United States. According to media reports, China’s low bid for the Pacific submarine fiber optic cable was recently declared invalid.
The “Digital Silk Road” proposed by the Chinese government in 2015 is a combination of digital economic development and the “Belt and Road” initiative, which hopes to expand its influence by promoting cross-border infrastructure and digital networks.
Chinese companies bid low on U.S. warn of security risks
The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank last year funded the “East Micronesia Cable project” (East Micronesia Cable project), which aims to improve communication cables in the Pacific island nations of Nauru, Micronesia and Kiribati. Participating companies include China’s “huawei Ocean”, France’s Alcatel (Alcatel Submarine Networks), Japan’s NEC, and Huawei Ocean’s offer is more than 20 percent lower than its competitors, is considered likely to win the bid.
However, according to the Nikkei Asian Review, the bid was declared invalid because “all bidders failed to meet the required conditions”. Because the submarine cable plan another cable connected to the U.S. military stronghold of Guam, including the United States, Australia and Japan have raised security concerns about the project.
U.S. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote to the Micronesian government last year warning that Beijing could use the submarine cable project to launch “espionage and geopolitical coercion” if the Chinese company wins the low bid, putting the Pacific submarine cable at risk. The plan faces security risks.
Expert: China’s digital development revolves around state power
Rebecca Arcesati, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, which specializes in Chinese digital technology, told an online seminar at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, D.C., on March 19. The Chinese government’s “Digital Silk Road” and its active investment in developing countries or regions clearly have important geopolitical and strategic goals, she said at an online seminar hosted by the German Marshall Fund in Washington on March 19.
“This idea of establishing China as a center of connectivity reflects Beijing’s Perception of controlling key information channels whose data traffic can give them a huge strategic advantage. …… The Digital Silk Road can also help China to dominate in information and communication technologies and other areas. ” She said.
Ossessati explained that China fears it faces potential cyber and national security threats of its own with the West dominating the information infrastructure. But beyond that, the Chinese Communist Party also seeks to collect vast amounts of data overseas and make it available to areas such as civilian and military intelligence, propaganda and information operations.
According to media reports, the 7,500-mile-long (12,070 km) China-Europe “Peace” submarine cable will be completed later this year. The submarine cable will run from China overland to Pakistan and then under the sea through the “Horn of Africa” to Marseille, France. Bloomberg reports that the cable, which can transmit enough data per second to show 90,000 hours of Netflix movies, will enable Chinese companies in Europe and Africa to get faster Internet service.
Ossessati noted that the cable connects to the European continent and that the EU should pay close attention to whether it will threaten the EU’s national security because China’s “civil-military integration” policy, like its vision of digital development, revolves around state control, censorship and strict regulation of civil society.
“This stems from provisions of Chinese law that we are all familiar with and can fundamentally force Chinese companies to hand over data to the Chinese government,” she said, adding that “Chinese investments in various EU cities are very much a cause for vigilance, especially as massive human rights violations are also suspected in China. “
The U.S. and Europe should work more closely together
The “peace cable” also because of Huawei’s participation, the U.S. government to pressure the French news. The Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael Institute) senior researcher Heijmans (Maaike Okano-Heijmans) said in the same seminar, in the U.S.-China trade war and digital technology wrestling, the EU is undoubtedly more inclined to the United States, but there are still differences of opinion between each other.
“The EU wants to go more into regulating large technology companies, but in the U.S. many people see this as an act of trade protectionism …… We have to identify areas where we can cooperate.” She said.
Representatives of EU member states signed three declarations at the fourth Digital Age online conference on 19 March, pledging to boost international connectivity, promote clean digital technologies and improve the regulatory environment for startups and large companies. Prior to that, the EU also announced on March 9 the Digital Compass initiative, which aims to complete the digital transformation by 2030 and build a secure, high-performance and sustainable digital infrastructure in the hope of reducing dependence on the U.S. and other major technology powers.
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