China is providing different governments, with little protection of human rights, with telecommunications technology, facial-recognition hardware and analytical tools to process data. These technologies are then combined, in order to create advanced surveillance systems that can be used for policing, such as identifying political and social threats. But it also serves repressive purposes and can therefore strengthen authoritarianism. China’s export of these systems started to increase in 2012, and since 2016 it has increased even more rapidly. Many of these technological systems are on the border between public security, control and repression, and they are exported as whole systems, or parts of it on its own. A good example of this is the so-called “safe cities” projects (also called smart cities), that for example Huawei is highly involved in developing worldwide. In short, it is an advanced public security platform that collects and analyzes data from different sources simultaneously, e.g. criminal record, surveillance cameras, license plates and facial recognition. It can also track phones and in some countries, it collects a wide range of personal data. These systems aim to enhance the capability of the police, rescue and security forces, in order to predict and prevent crime and disasters. But it is also promoted for broader purposes such as different public services to digitalize and make cities more effective. The major backside is that, in numerous cases, these systems have been documented to being used for human rights abuses. There are also several projects where Chinese tech companies, for example Cloud Walk that are known for providing the AI surveillance system in Xinjiang, are collaborating with police forces around the world. These projects do for example include real time facial recognition on body cameras worn by police officers. These projects are called “smart policing”. An example of a smart policing system can be found in Ecuador, where a mass surveillance and tracking system is being used in the country. Facial recognition capabilities are supposed to be incorporated in the system in the near future. Over 3,000 persons are working in 16 monitoring centres to view the camera footage, that is collected from over 4,000 cameras. The goal is to improve public security and fight crimes, which is why the information is shared with the police. But investigations have shown that it has also been shared with Ecuador’s intelligence agency, who most likely are using it to track and harass the opposition and journalists. The system is made by Huawei and the state-owned company China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation (CEIEC), who also has sold similar systems to Venezuela, Bolivia and Angola. In reality the system has not helped to reduce crimes in Ecuador. Officials in Ecuador have however claimed otherwise and has for example said that the mobile tracking function “has helped solve thousands of cases”. Additionally, Chinese news agency Xinhua has proudly reported that Chinese tech has helped reduce crime and improved Ecuador’s capabilities to respond to different emergencies. Interestingly, Ecuador is one of the countries that has borrowed large amounts of money from China. Between 2005-2018 the amount was almost US $18.4 billion. Similar events have occurred in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, where a police command centre with surveillance, monitoring and facial recognition capabilities opened in 2019. What is interesting is that the 60 cameras were given to Kyrgyzstan by China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation (CEIEC) free of charge. Another interesting case is Tajikistan, where Huawei installed hundreds of surveillance cameras and traffic cameras in the capital in 2013. The system has been a success in creating safer roads and it is also assisting in crime fighting. But it has also proved to turn a blind eye to when someone powerful gets caught doing something wrong. The technology provided by Huawei has also led to the government pressuring its citizens to upload biometric identifications. Since 2019, everyone with a SIM card has to register fingerprints and blood type together with other personal data. There are also some major concerns about this being used specifically to keep track of Muslims in Tajikistan, similar to the situation in Xinjiang. In Serbia, for example, these smart-policing projects have been taken even further, and incorporates drone surveillance in for example, crime heavy areas. There is also a military cooperation in place, since Serbia became the first European country to buy armed drones from China. In democracies such as France, Botswana, Ghana and South Africa comprehensive systems like this have mainly been used for law enforcement purposes. But in, for example, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Malaysia, Mauritius and Uganda, the use has been more on the repressive side and has helped to strengthen authoritarianism. Other than this, China is exporting many other types of technologies and taking part in different tech-oriented projects. Such as advanced systems of censorship tools and social media monitoring and also telecom services, digital partnership with universities and research labs. In Ethiopia tech companies such as ZTE have been involved in providing the government with surveillance and censoring technologies. These technologies have been used for surveillance of opposition and journalists, censoring of online content, internet shutdowns and persecutions based on sharing of content online. This collection of tactics resembles the Chinese digital authoritarian model, and it is likely that they have gotten inspiration from China. Although China are not the only ones providing digital authoritarian tools to Ethiopia. ZTE has also pretty much had a monopoly on the Ethiopian telecom market, which is believed to have influenced some strategic decisions made by the Ethiopian government. In Serbia the technology, provided by Huawei, is being used to harass activists and the opposition in an illegitimate way. Venezuela is another interesting example. Their politicians are believed to have been inspired by China’s model, and especially the social credit system, but it is unclear if China has actively promoted this to Venezuela or not, and it seems to have happened much on Venezuela’s own initiative. Hence its placement in the “passive” category. In 2017 Venezuela hired the Chinese tech company ZTE to develop a national ID system that includes a database over all citizens and a mobile payment solution. The system is called “the fatherland card” and it is designed to monitor citizens’ behaviour and it gathers a wide range of personal information. For example, about family, employment and income, owned property, medical history, social media presence and political information such as party affiliation and voting activity. This is data that can be used for repressive purposes, and it is also linked to the government’s subsidized programs that provides food and healthcare. The government of Venezuela has since rewarded persons who signed up and punished persons who have not yet registered to get the fatherland card. For example, government employees are obliged to register if they want benefits such as healthcare and pension. And citizens need it for voting and to open a bank account. A technical advisor was a part of a visit to China to study the Social Credit System in order to get inspiration before launching it in Venezuela. This advisor raised concerns about its potential to be used to control citizens. He was then detained, abused and accused of being a traitor. What is also interesting is that President Maduro publicly praised China, and People’s Republic Of China(PRC), for their help in building the system.
One part of the passive autocracy promotion is also the Chinese investments in different parts of the world. And this goes broader than just the Digital Silk Route (DSR) and incorporates Belt And Road Initiatives(BRI) investments also. But to stick to the DSR, the main ways are through investing in for example, Information And Communications Technology(ICT) infrastructure. China is the largest bilateral lender and trading partner to Africa and Huawei are said to be responsible for building around 70% of the 4G network throughout the continent. In 2019, loans in Africa that involved Huawei projects were close to US $3.4 billion. However, Huawei is far from the only actor involved in this, and similar investments and loans are occurring in regions all over the world. In some countries China has a strategy to encourage governments to buy their technologies and systems through offering soft loans to cover a part of the cost. For example, this has happened in Laos, Mongolia and Uzbekistan. State owned China Exim Bank is one of the main lenders. In their case, and the same goes for other Chinese banks, the recipients are obliged to choose Chinese companies to provide the technologies that they planned to buy. Another interesting aspect is the rise in demand for monitoring and tracking technology caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. China was fast in their response to this demand when they linked the Digital Silk Route (DSR) to the “Health Silk Road” and started offering technological solutions that were adapted to the pandemic needs, such as contact tracing and apps that track persons in quarantine and collect their health data. The pandemic has also caused more interest in DSR-related projects in Africa, for example regarding e-commerce.
China has been found to be advising foreign governments on strategic ICT-issues and also in relation to AI- and surveillance technology, for example in Kenya. They have also been found to be providing guidance and training regarding how to use technologies for authoritarian and repressive purposes, for example through offering study trips and seminars in China. Investigations have also found that China is adapting their methods and the rhetoric of their selling-arguments to the different local contexts that they operate in. For example, they draw on local politics, conflicts and problems in the country and region where they are trying to better promote their technologies, study trips and seminars. The People’s Liberation Army is also suspected to be involved in promoting the spread of surveillance systems and the Chinese model, together with Chinese Communist Party(CCP) and tech-companies. One example is China and Ethiopia, two who have developed a rather close relationship. This has resulted in China playing a critical role in supporting and advising the Ethiopian government in the development of their digital infrastructure. The digital infrastructure has proven to be used for repressive purposes and it is likely that China has contributed, at least with ideas and inspiration. Another case where China has served as inspiration and know-how is for Ecuador’s mass surveillance system, mentioned in the above. Before it was launched, two delegations from Ecuador visited similar centres in China to “get a firsthand look” on how they operate, with the aim to learn straight from the source. In both Zambia and Uganda Huawei has helped the respective governments to spy on political opponents. In Uganda it led to the arrest of several critics. Huawei employees also arranged a study trip for senior security officials to learn about their video surveillance system, that included learning about mass monitoring and also, on Uganda’s request, they wanted to learn about hacking individuals in the opposition. The cyber-surveillance centre was located in Algeria, where some of the employees had received training as cyber experts in Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China. The Ugandan government ended up purchasing a similar system, as seen in Algeria, for US $126 million, that is believed to be used for repressive purposes.
Brazilian Ex-President Bolsonaro has, together with parliament members, visited China to learn about their surveillance model and its benefits for public security. After the trip it was announced that they would submit a bill to make it compulsory to install cameras with facial recognition capabilities in public spaces to increase security. They have also started a central database that gathers information on Brazilian citizens. The data is collected from all the federal bodies in Brazil. This database and the surveillance systems has since been reported to being used for other purposes than increasing security. For example, critics mean that the data is being used to monitor political dissidents. In the case of Belarus, the China Communist Party (CCP) is believed to have played a role in establishing a mass surveillance system, and an analytical system to go with it. The system has allowed for persecution of political opponents, activists and journalists. Huawei is involved in supplying the technologies, as well as the training of employees and officials working for tech and telecom companies in Belarus. In 2018 Huawei published a report on their ICT priorities in Belarus. The report was released after a technology event where a high-level employee of Huawei met with the Prime Minister of Belarus, to exchange ideas. But also, with a clear intent to influence politics and policy. Besides the close cooperation with Huawei, The Belarusian government also has close ties with the CCP, and this cooperation is believed to have inspired an information security law that the government presented in 2019. At the time officials said that it was a product entirely made in Belarus and that no other influences were present in the process. But suspicions of China’s involvement began to arise, especially when the Chinese ambassador, just one day after the announcement, was talking to the press about the intensive cooperation between Belarus and Chinese companies on cyber- and information security. In Egypt there has also been similar suspicions of the CCP, Huawei, and other tech companies, exerting influence over the Egyptian government, along with their cooperation on ICT and surveillance technologies. Similar claims have been made for Serbia as well.
Chinese officials have also been arranging 2-3 weeks long training courses for several foreign media officials and journalists, from over 30 countries, where China teaches their authoritarian model and the methods of censoring, surveilling and monitoring of critics and negative public opinion. Government officials have also been invited to similar courses. The training courses are paid for by China and have shown to inspire, for example Vietnam, that shortly after the completed course implemented a new cyber security law that was very similar to the Chinese strategy. Similar developments have been seen in Uganda and Tanzania, which adopted restrictive media and cybercrime laws after undergoing Chinese training programs. Training courses where Chinese media representatives educate journalists in China’s propaganda rhetoric has also occurred, as well as study trips for journalists to China, with the condition that they portray China in a positive way afterwards. For example, journalists from Sri Lanka were expected to publish positive news about China after a China Communist Party(CCP) sponsored trip that included a “media tour” and meetings with top Chinese officials. Between 2014-2019, 250 Mongolian journalists and media officials has been invited to China for similar study trips. China is also sponsoring Gambian journalists to be trained in China, resulting in very positive coverage about China and frequent occurrence of CCP propaganda in Gambian news. Similar trips and training have also been arranged for journalists and other media officials in for example Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Jordan, Angola, Bangladesh, Georgia, Iran, Lebanon, Belarus, Malawi, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and India.
To sum up China’s export of digital authoritarianism within the Digital Silk Route (DSR), two main categories were found in these results. (1) Technology export and capacity strengthening, which consists of mainly passive autocracy promotion since it is up to the receiving country what to do with the technologies that they have acquired. And (2) Policy support and promotion of an authoritarian model, which consists of mainly active autocracy promotion, such as training courses and strategic advice to governments.
The easiest category to identify and find evidence for is components and projects of the DSR that fits in the category of passive autocracy promotion. In the active category, evidence and examples are much harder to find, especially detailed accounts. This difficulty could lie in the fact much of the autocracy promotion seems to be happening behind closed doors and is not documented, especially when China is actively trying to influence other governments. Another
difficulty has been that in many cases the active and passive autocracy promotion is hard to distinguish between, and they are often intertwined through diplomacy, cooperation and economic ties. This implies the wide set of tools that China has at their disposal. It has been especially difficult to categorize diplomatic relations with the China Communist Party (CCP) and close cooperation with Chinese tech-companies. I would say that it is in a grey area between passive and active promotion. The examples that I provided of this in the previous section was placed in the active category, since that was the best fit for those specific cases. But in reality, this distinction is very difficult to make. One part of the actions in the ‘active promotion’ category of the analytical framework was barely found in the results, which is the part about military cooperation. It could only be identified in the case of Serbia.
Another complicated aspect is that these technologies and systems are on one hand used for positive purposes, such as public security. But on the other hand, it can also be used for control and repression. As stated in the theory chapter, which way countries lean towards is determined by the strength of their governments and different local factors. I believe that the findings in this thesis support this, since there are many different examples of repressive technology being used in both legitimate and illegitimate ways. However, most hybrid- and authoritarian regimes that China cooperates with seem to use these systems for dual purposes, and in these regimes, political goals and control seems to be prioritized over protecting human rights.
As already mentioned, the active autocracy promotion is unsurprisingly difficult to study and find evidence for. For example, it is somewhat unclear what the training of journalists and other officials consists of exactly, and few details are provided. But if we look at the outcome in several of the cases, these efforts have resulted in a rise in authoritarian values and practices as well as human rights violations and actual law changes. Ultimately China is responsible for promoting and planning these training and study trips, as well as its contents that has served as inspiration and contributed to a rise in authoritarianism. This is why I have classified these activities as active autocracy promotion, even though China only might be doing these efforts for their own benefit with little interest in how countries are planning to use this information.
Safe cities and smart policing projects resemble China’s social credit system and seems to constitute the foundation of developing comprehensive systems for control and repression, similar to China’s digital authoritarian model and the system that is being used in Xinjiang. These results therefore indicate that the gateway to a digital authoritarian model in many cases seems to lie in acquiring AI- and surveillance capabilities. And not as much in purchasing, for example, telecom infrastructure. The results also show that close cooperation and ties with the China Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese tech-companies makes countries, their government officials and media representatives much more susceptible to active autocracy promotion. It is also very clear that China is active in many regions in the world, especially in different parts of Africa, the middle east, Central Asia and South America.
If we look at the summary of China’s digital authoritarian model, and at the six techniques of digital authoritarianism; “surveillance, censorship, social manipulation and harassment, cyber-attacks, internet shutdowns and targeted persecution against online users”, we can through these findings establish that China, through the Digital Silk Route(DSR), is contributing to providing hybrid- and authoritarian regimes with the technological tools and the know-how that enables these capabilities. We can also, trough the different examples, see that this in some ways contributes to violations of human rights and democratic backsliding. Therefore, these findings show that China, through the DSR, is engaged in both active and passive autocracy promotion. Furthermore, this means that China is contributing to the rise of digital authoritarianism and assists regimes in their efforts to control and repress their citizens. These findings strengthen the belief that to study autocracy promotion, the important thing is not the intentions, but rather the actions and their outcome.
It was not our intention to address policy responses and actions to be taken in order to turn this digital authoritarian trend around, but we can conclude a few things based on the literature and materials. For one, it will be of great importance for democracies all over the world to do a comprehensive effort to stop this disturbing trend. To be more specific, it is important that democratic states develops and provides an alternative online governance model that is built on democracy, to build democratic principles around the use of AI- and surveillance technologies and lastly to offer these technologies at a much lower cost, in order to compete with China.
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