Digital Silk Road

In 2015, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping announced the Digital Silk Road. The Digital Silk Road is a component of the BRI which includes digital technological development, the development of digital standards, and the expansion of digital infrastructure. Its stated aim is to improve digital connectivity among participating countries, with China as the main driver of the improved digital infrastructure, with the benefit to China of reducing its reliance on American digital technology. Digital Silk Road-related investments in projects outside China reached an estimated US$79 billion as of 2018. In February 2024, leaked documents from a Chinese government contractor based in Shanghai called I-Soon provided details into a hacking campaign involving the critical infrastructure of Digital Silk Road partner countries. == Assessment ==

The Digital Silk Road has also been described as a pathway to export China's system of mass surveillance and censorship technology of the Great Firewall to multiple countries. In a 2024 literature review, academics Christopher Foster et al. write that the focus on concerns about the potential negative impacts of Chinese digital expansion in the global south are often speculative, not evidence-based, worries and that there is "virtually no specific evidence as yet about the positive local economic impact of Digital Silk Road." ==References==