China's shifting focus within the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) now
prioritizes exporting its “digital authoritarianism” across the Indo-Pacific in a bid to create an alternative internet approach that’s based on its model of state dominance.
This was the finding of Article 19’s latest report, “
The Digital Silk Road,” which examined China's influence on internet freedom in Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand (major BRI beneficiaries).
Among others, the report found that China has been using both infrastructure and policy support to reshape these countries’ digital governance, fueling violations of freedom of expression, information, and privacy.
“By expanding its authoritarian model, China aims to ultimately supplant the tenets of internet freedom and rights-based principles of global digital governance,” said Article 19’s Asia digital program manager Michael Caster.
For example, Chinese tech companies led by Huawei, ZTE, and Alibaba have provided infrastructure and equipment used increasingly to surveil and censor its citizens.
Cambodia, Nepal, and Thailand, specifically, have been inspired by China’s digital authoritarianism and are working on their own versions of the Chinese Great Firewall, while Malaysia has been vocally supportive about the Chinese model on digital governance.
This is not the first time that China is facing accusations of exporting its digital repression tools, especially to authoritarian states like Cambodia. Last year, Global Policy Journal reported that China exported its surveillance tech to
at least 63 countries. China was also found to be
exchanging tactics with Russia on how to track dissent and control the internet.
Such strategies are believed to be part of its broader agenda of unduly influencing other countries through a wide array of soft power tactics – from offering
ambitious infrastructure projects and loans to developing nations to even outright
information warfare.
These tactics, according to a 2023 paper from the
Journal of Democracy, were part of an “antidemocratic toolkit” that includes using nongovernmental organizations, media outlets, diplomats, advisors, hackers and bribes, “to prop up autocrats and sow discord in democracies.” “Xi sees rolling back democracy overseas as part of his plan to secure his regime at home,” the paper added.
Some countries, however, have proven resilient, such as when Taiwan staved off
Beijing-sanctioned online disinformation to sway voters against the island nation’s Democratic Progressive Party, which has advocated independence.