Could China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) Pose Security Challenges and on Central Asian ‘Multi-Vector’ Diplomacy Efforts?
Marina Gruzer | 27 May 2024
Summary
Since its launch in 2015, China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) has become a key element in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and provides partner countries with telecommunications networks, mobile payment systems and surveillance technologies.
Central Asian states are rapidly developing their surveillance systems through DSR frameworks and ‘Safe City Projects’, which use facial recognition technology and data control centres largely provided by Chinese information and communication technology (ICT) companies.
Apart from the data security risks, as seen in the case of the African Union where it was found that China has access to confidential data through the DSR, but also poses a challenge to Central Asia’s ‘multi-vector’ diplomacy that aims to diversify its international partners.
The DSR aims to improve communication across the BRI by providing participating countries with 5G telecommunication networks and surveillance technology. Central Asian states have been increasingly eager to develop surveillance and cyber-security capacities, especially due to their autocratic tendencies as categorised by the Freedom House as authoritarian based on issues such as limitations on internet access and content, high shares of government control in the ICT market and restrictions on political opposition. Enhancing digital technology can be a measure of maintaining existing political systems. Chinese state-owned firms like China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) have been greatly involved in developing data storage and surveillance systems across the region. Consequently, this has raised concerns that China could use the DSR to enable partner countries to utilise a model of ‘technology-based authoritarianism’.
Safe City Projects are key DSR initiatives which aim to reduce crime rates and have already been developed in major cities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This includes facial recognition technology, biometric registries and data management centres. The levels of Chinese involvement vary across these countries, but remain dominant in the process. Kazakhstan’s Safe City Projects involve Kazakh firms, such as Sergek, who specialise in traffic data collection and analysis to assist in administrative urban management. However, Safe City Project systems in Kyrgyzstan are almost entirely managed through Kyrgyz government cooperation with foreign, mostly Chinese, firms.
In 2018 it was found that China had been accessing confidential data from a Chinese-built African Union headquarters network. Therefore, Central Asia’s lack of adequate digital security regulations may worsen vulnerability. While developing surveillance technology relies on Chinese investment, many Central Asian states use elements of Russian digital policy models. Additionally, Central Asia, especially Tajikistan, which owed 60% of its foreign debt to China in 2022, relies heavily on China for infrastructure financing support. Both Russia and China are the region’s dominant trading partners. In this way, the DSR risks increasing reliance on China by potentially worsening debt while pushing Central Asia closer to Russia politically, especially if DSR frameworks are used to enforce strict media control in states like Turkmenistan. This would undermine Central Asia’s ‘multi-vector’ foreign policy, which aims to diversify relations away from Russian and Chinese influence, and may weaken security as resisting pressures from regional hegemons becomes harder.
Ilyas Dautov
Forecast
Short-term
Central Asia will likely continue developing surveillance systems through DSR frameworks as seen in the increasing focus on developing surveillance capacity. For example: Kazakhstan aims to expand Sergek’s surveillance onto a national level through the 2020 ‘National Video Monitoring System’.
Long-term
If Central Asian states do not look to diversify project partners, there are likely serious risks of a deepened economic reliance on China and increased cyber-security vulnerability. Furthermore, using Russian legislative frameworks will also undermine the ‘multi-vector’ diplomacy, as it will further deepen Russian ties and regional influence.
