International | China’s quest for digital gold

The Beijing Olympics which will open on February 4 should not overshadow the other competitions led by China. Far from the Olympic podiums, it is in the field of technology and digital standards that the Asian giant is doing everything possible to be the world number one.

Adrian Savolle
Researcher on Asia at the Center for International Studies and Research of the University of Montreal

Since 2013, China has been the leading investor in research and development in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), and its stated desire is to be the undisputed leader by 2030.

To achieve this, Chinese companies have established numerous partnerships with foreign universities, including several in Quebec. They also use data captured by surveillance cameras installed around the world and collect it through applications innocently downloaded to our “smart” phones.

However, if Chinese companies seek profit, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recently reminded them that their first duty is to serve it.

China is thus experimenting with a digital authoritarian regime in which, as in the West, “surveillance capitalism” is deployed, under which companies spy on the behavior of individuals to transform their needs and sell products.

However, this digital autocracy can only be established with the help of Western companies. The CCP thus uses Western platforms to establish, for example, a counter-narrative on multiple cases, ranging from “re-education camps” in Xinjiang to militarized islets in the South China Sea. Criticized, Twitter has been trying since 2019 to block fake accounts established in China, but it is enough to observe the official Chinese accounts and their publications to know the subjects which disturb Beijing. And as in real life, the messages published are increasingly acrimonious, no longer discussing interpretations or the validity of the data produced, but attacking and personally discrediting the individuals and organizations who publish the disturbing information.

It is also not insignificant that Facebook’s second source of net income (banned in China) comes from targeted advertising from mainland China.

Obviously, these companies seek to generate profits, but what do we want to do with the tools created by the algorithms? Should “surveillance capitalism” continue or should the authorities regulate the players in the sector? Should these companies be allowed to collaborate with the CCP? The answers to these questions are not simple, as many products from these Western companies are made in China. However, it is urgent to think about it lucidly, because these are lasting structural changes that are being put in place through digital technology, and the problem posed by China in terms of digital technology goes far beyond this framework.

Indeed, thanks to the “Digital Silk Roads” formalized in 2015, and to the Chinese-made smart cities that are spreading across all continents, it is, in addition to the risks of espionage and the shutdown of systems installed in case of disagreement with the country, ways of governing and the establishment of digital authoritarianism that are already emerging in several Central Asian countries. While the risk of using foreign technologies is inherent in the practice, Chinese digital products, although often more efficient and less expensive than their available counterparts, incorporate specific values ​​and procedures which, like what going on in China, can be mobilized to apply concrete methods of authoritarian management of populations through the information collected by means of connected objects.

It is therefore no coincidence that the country invests so much in the sector. After failing to replace WiFi with WAPI (Chinese national standard for wireless local area networks adopted in 2003), China is installing its own technological standards through its products, dodging the International Organization for Standardization, the International Electrotechnical Commission and the International Telecommunications Union in many countries (Russia, Belarus, Serbia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Greece, Switzerland, Turkey, etc.). However, technological standards are neither hardware nor specific software, but rather directives necessary for the development of products compatible with each other. Thus, the dissemination of these standards outside the frameworks decided internationally gives a considerable competitive advantage to Chinese companies, and occurs in a context in which the country has become in 2019 the first international filer of patents (which also ensures royalties on any research using the registered intellectual properties).

Through the digital sector, China is in the process of changing the rules of trade at the global level, and it does not intend to stop there, the dematerialization of its currency aiming, among other things, to circumvent the American dollar in international transactions.

As the world looks to Beijing for the Winter Olympics, let’s be aware that this competition of standards and technologies will have far greater repercussions than the number of medals obtained by the host country.