In recent years, the United States and several other countries have asserted that Chinese digital companies threaten their national security, saying that they violate international sanctions, steal intellectual property, and commit cyber espionage. But even as the US and other developing countries express serious concerns about Chinese tech companies, Beijing is proceeding with its Digital Silk Road (DSR) initiative in Africa and Gulf countries, providing assistance toward improving recipients’ telecommunications networks, artificial intelligence capabilities, cloud computing, e-commerce and mobile payment systems, surveillance technology, smart cities, and other high-tech areas.
Meanwhile serious doubts about the security risks Chinese tech poses remain. The DSR has the potential to enhance digital connectivity but it also provides Beijing with a tool to leverage to meet its geopolitical objectives, specifically through the surveillance and exploitation of in-built backdoors.
US Distrust of Chinese Digital Companies:
The world’s leading provider of fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology, Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has stoked fears of espionage and intellectual property theft in the US and many other countries. In response, Washington and its allies have imposed sweeping restrictions on Huawei as part of a larger crackdown on Chinese technology companies. The world’s largest provider of 5G networks and a leader in sales of telecommunications equipment, Huawei is based in Shenzhen, China, and sells its products domestically and internationally.
Although Huawei claims to be a private company fully owned by its employees, its precise ownership structure is unknown. Huawei designs and manufactures the kit that controls how and where data is sent – network switches, gateways, routers, and bridges. These core infrastructure devices touch everything traversing the internet and are critical to it functioning properly. The main concern, according to U.S. intelligence agencies, is that the Chinese government could use Huawei to spy. In 2022, an FBI investigation found that Huawei equipment can be used to disrupt U.S. military communications, including those about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Many U.S. policymakers view Huawei as a commercial extension of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These allegations stem from the fact that the Chinese government has over the years ensured Huawei had easy access to financing and high levels of government subsidies. This has allowed Huawei to price its network equipment below foreign competitors’ rates; a European Commission investigation found that Huawei has underbid its competitors by up to 70 percent.
In November 2022, the Joe Biden government banned the sale and import of new communications equipment from five Chinese companies, including Huawei and ZTE, amid concerns over national security. Other Chinese companies listed included Hikvision, Dahua and Hytera, which make video surveillance equipment and two-way radio systems. The US, Australia, Japan, and others have effectively banned Huawei from building their 5G networks. Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Sweden have also restricted the use of Huawei equipment in the construction of their 5G networks. Some countries allege that Huawei steals intellectual property from foreign technology companies. ByteDance-owned TikTok has also been in the news for reportedly stealing US users’ data.
China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR)
Beijing’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) initiative targets digital technologies in developing countries by offering cheap alternatives to Western data systems, investing in 5G fibre optic cables, data centres, e-commerce and artificial intelligence. Poorer nations, primarily in Africa and the Indo-Pacific, are drawn to DSR initiatives due to the compellingly low price tag. China has penetrated African countries’ digital spaces, signing DSR memorandums of understanding with 16 countries.
Lured by the cost effective tech solutions being offered by Chinese companies, many developing nations especially in Africa are unable to assess the security concerns due to the potential for surveillance and data collection.
In December 2020, a report emerged that alleged Chinese hackers had been obtaining security camera footage from inside the African Union (AU) headquarters building in Ethiopia which is an indication of Beijing’s objectives in the resource rich continent. According to the report ‘How China Has Been Using Huawei-Made Cameras to Spy on the African Union Headquarters’ published in the leading US magazine The National Interest, in Africa Beijing’s opportunities for eavesdropping are vast. Affordable Chinese tech products such as smartphones are popular on the continent. Huawei has built more than 70 percent of the continent’s 4G networks and at least fourteen intra-governmental ICT networks, including a data centre in Zambia that houses the entirety of the government’s records.
The story of the Chinese government spying on the AU demonstrates what Beijing can do with a structure one of its companies built. The AU’s compromised ICT system was also provided by Huawei. “Given Huawei’s links to China’s Ministry of State Security, it beggars belief that Beijing lacks anything less than an excellent idea of how to access those backdoors,” according to The National Interest. Beijing has many reasons to take advantage of the spying opportunities its companies’ activities in Africa provides. It can eavesdrop on the sensitive conversations they have with their non-African counterparts, and the Chinese government might be able to gather useful economic information it can pass to its many companies operating on the continent, the report alleged.
In another instance, Chinese company Cloudwalk signed a strategic partnership agreement with Zimbabwe to facilitate mass domestic implementation of surveillance recognition software. In return, Zimbabwe agreed to send the biometric data of millions of its citizens to China.
Over the years, Chinese telecom providers have repeatedly been caught misrouting internet traffic from the US and other nations through China. In another revelation millions of Google IP addresses went offline following a similar mishap in which the Chinese carrier improperly accepted traffic out of Africa.
The DSR initiative has picked up pace since 2017, when it was officially launched as a separate component of the BRI. The DSR’s growing footprint, accompanied by extensive investments in the physical connectivity and infrastructure domains, offers China the opportunity to shape the tech policy of several countries.
Expansion of DSR in the Gulf:
Accordingly, China has encouraged its tech and communication companies to deepen cooperation with and expand their market share in the Middle East. As the Gulf states look to diversify their economies by developing financial sectors and knowledge-based industries, digital cooperation with China has increased manifold.
State-owned enterprises like China Telecom, China Mobile, Hikvision, Unicom, and Dahua (which is partially state-owned) and private companies like Huawei, Baidu, Hengtong, Alibaba, and Tencent are consolidating their presence in Middle eastern countries.
China is involved in the development of telecommunications, smart cities, artificial intelligence and technology-oriented businesses in the Gulf states. The young population of the Gulf are exposed to the growing presence of Chinese technology, ranging from social networking applications to digital payment platforms.
Huawei is working with Saudi Arabia to develop digital infrastructure for religious pilgrimages. The firm has also partnered with Dubai officials to help update its airport and cooperated with the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority to build fibre optics and video surveillance. UAE telecommunications company, Du, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Huawei to research, verify and replicate multi-access edge computing applications in the region. Huawei offers cloud computing services to Kuwait. Alibaba has pledged to build a ‘Tech Town’ with Meraas Holding, a Dubai-based developer, housing over 3000 high-tech companies. Alibaba has also inked deals to store cloud data in Oman and has a vast e-commerce footprint in Saudi Arabia. Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime has opened a regional headquarters in Abu Dhabi.
Managing Digital Ties with China?
These countries, in the Middle East or developing countries in Africa must understand that allowing Chinese firms to build countries’ fifth-generation (5G) networks and other infrastructure, and to set technology standards that could become the norm, could risk espionage and coercion of their states’ politics if Beijing used data breaches to blackmail political elites in those states.
At a time when Beijing is becoming more assertive on the global stage, China will use the DSR to insert security holes that China’s government could use for spying purposes.
Huawei’s 5G infrastructure could contain backdoors that allow the Chinese government to collect and centralise massive quantities of data and give Beijing the necessary access and control of host countries’ communications networks and public utilities. Chinese intelligence laws are known to be intentionally vague allowing them to be used to force Huawei to hand over data to the Chinese government.
As an increasing number of developed countries, including the US, Australia, Japan, and European states ban Chinese tech firms from their 5G infrastructure, Beijing is making the DSR a bigger foreign policy priority than BRI.
Therefore, the weaponisation of tech through DSR can help China strengthen its hold in the digital domain and advance its authoritarian vision for tech expansion.In an era of geostrategic rivalry, nations must make stark and brutal choices in terms of managing their digital ties with China.
