Chinese Cyber Power: When Technology Becomes the Key to Global Power
- Gabriele Iuvinale
- 1 giu
- Tempo di lettura: 8 min
The world is in a technological revolution, where data is the new gold. China is fully leveraging this transformation with its "Liminal Warfare": a total and often "invisible" strategy to achieve global hegemony.
Beijing is building massive "cyber power" through technological self-sufficiency (5G, AI), control of global standards, and espionage via IoT. Key tools include the Digital Silk Road (DSR) and the e-CNY digital currency, used to integrate the global economy into its own ecosystem, collect Big Data, and potentially circumvent sanctions.
This strategy, extensively described in the essay "Unrestricted Warfare," aims to make states dependent on Chinese IT standards and its data systems. China views technology as power, and its digital ascent is redefining the geopolitical order, raising significant international concern.
The world is experiencing unprecedented changes, driven by a new technological revolution. Data, especially Big Data, has emerged as a crucial new factor of production. Information technology has become the frontier of innovation, networks the new global infrastructure, and the digital economy the driving force. Simultaneously, cybersecurity has transformed into an unavoidable global challenge. In this dynamic landscape, China is actively pursuing its strategic objectives, leveraging a "digital, intelligent, and integrated global ecosystem" through its doctrine of "Liminal Warfare."
China's "Cyber Power" and "Cyber Sovereignty"
For the People's Republic of China (PRC), "cyber power" is a fundamental component of its global hegemony strategy. This power manifests through several pillars:
Technological Self-Sufficiency: China aims to develop and exploit its technological capabilities to achieve self-sufficiency in key sectors such as 5G, 6G networks, and software. This reduces its reliance on foreign technologies and strengthens its autonomy.
Co-optation and Internet Governance: Beijing seeks to build international consensus around its ideas regarding global internet governance and the definition of international standards, imprinting these with "PCC characteristics." "Cyber sovereignty" is one of four principles articulated by President Xi Jinping, outlining his vision for how the global internet governance system should be transformed to reflect the Party's model. For the PCC, territorial and cyber sovereignty are considered indivisible.
Espionage via IoT and Smart Cities: China exploits the espionage potential inherent in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities to collect data and project influence.
Achieving "cyber superpower" status is a key objective for the PCC to impose shared governance and a China-centric development of the internet environment. The World Internet Conference is seen as an opportunity for China to collaborate, but in reality, it increasingly serves to promote Beijing's interests in the bodies that decide international standards, rather than pursuing sound and neutral technology.
Shaping Global Standards: Economic Advantage and Power Projection
Over the past two decades, the Chinese state has significantly increased its technical capabilities and strengthened its domestic technological environment. China's state-backed private technology sector has gained immense weight on the international stage and now plays an active role in promoting global technical standards and a worldwide governance mechanism for emerging technologies. China aims to shape future standards for everything from quantum computing to 6G, and international norms on Artificial Intelligence.
This effort is not merely technological; it carries a clear economic threat. By setting standards, Chinese companies will gain a significant competitive advantage in terms of speed in patenting new compliant technologies. This will enable them to compel countries and companies to pay to use Chinese technology. The revenue from these payments will then be reinvested in research and development in China, fueling a virtuous cycle of technological advancement and new patent acquisition. This mechanism stimulates domestic economic growth and projects China's "cyber power" geopolitically.
The Digital Silk Road (DSR) and the e-CNY: Tools for Digital Dominance
China's power relies not only on controlling physical ports and trade routes but also on the information technology of the Digital Silk Road (DSR), the development of fintech (financial technology), and its state digital currency, the e-CNY.
The Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), or e-CNY, is a crucial component of China's long-term strategy to develop a fully digital economy and lead the world towards a future driven by intelligent data utilization. The e-CNY is not just about money; it's intrinsically linked to data.
China's Five-Year Economic Plan, released in late 2020, lists cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things as the top three focus areas for its digital economy. While the digital currency is primarily a domestic matter, China is pushing the rest of the world to follow its technological path, making a significant impact on its foreign policy highly probable. In the long term, China's strategic approach to financial technology could give Beijing an enormous global economic advantage in the coming decades.
In the short term, the e-CNY and related infrastructure could also be used to circumvent US sanctions. A direct blockchain-based currency link could facilitate trade and support in places like Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, also easing sanction pressure on Russia, which has been de-dollarizing its reserves for years.
The digital renminbi is a key tool for the PCC to collect every byte of financial data, aggregate, analyze, and exploit it to build a stronger economic and political apparatus. The goal is to make money "smarter" to make the state "smarter," meaning to make China more powerful. As the world economy becomes more digitized, innovation will increasingly pass through the interpretation of aggregated data, thus gaining an advantage in global economic competition. Beijing's focus on fintech is, in effect, a geopolitical move, a global race where the winner will be whoever has the best Big Data. If the global digital economy evolves rapidly, as is inevitable following China's technological innovation, Beijing will gain significantly more bargaining power in international trade. To trade with China, it will become necessary to be part of its IT project.
The Digital Silk Road (DSR): An Integrated Regional Digital Trade Ecosystem
The Digital Silk Road (DSR) is an evolving platform with growing influence over global supply chains and trade. Recently, there has been immense progress in the digital development of smart ports and shipping worldwide, with an architecture that sets the standard for data exchange. While these developments improve efficiency and connectivity, the crucial question is how they will interface with the Belt and Road and the DSR.
The DSR is designed to coordinate and facilitate the digital integration of all suppliers conducting trade along the BRI's regional ecosystem. The goal is not just to create smart ports or cities but a true "regional and/or global digital trade ecosystem."
However, the DSR is a platform owned by the Chinese Communist Party. Its data is centrally stored, disseminated, and controlled by a state instrument in Beijing, rather than in neutrally accessible data warehouses or an independent cloud-based system. The central component of the plan is the development of physical infrastructure within a digital framework, with China strategically realigning trade to increasingly compel participants to conform to Chinese IT standards.
The DSR is playing an increasingly central role in developing a comprehensive package that includes policy dialogue, financial support, unimpeded trade, and people-to-people exchange. The question is no longer whether technology will be used in Chinese-backed ports, but when it will no longer be possible for global maritime trade to operate outside the Chinese DSR, ceding control and ownership of data to Beijing.
Data as a Factor of Production: A Strategic Lever
To boost the country's economic productivity, the PCC is also focusing on a resource it defines as "abundant, yet inefficiently utilized": public and private data (Big Data). In April 2020, the State Council of the People's Republic of China formally designated "data" as a factor of production, alongside land, labor, capital, and technology.
With data officially recognized as an economic "factor," Beijing will seek to optimize its allocation by leveraging the advantages of "socialism with Chinese characteristics." This could materialize in state intervention to open "data silos," currently held for the exclusive use of the private sector or government actors, and make them function more broadly within the economy. State-owned enterprises (SOEs), state-backed financial institutions, along with private enterprises, will certainly be tasked with contributing to this new development. To promote "digital transformation," large companies will also be encouraged to focus on integrating new technologies like 5G and Artificial Intelligence with the real Chinese economy. It is likely that the Beijing government will transfer foreign and domestic data to Chinese companies to give them competitive advantages.
As Chinese companies (based on data acquisition and analysis) grow, and the Chinese market remains central to the growth aspirations of multinationals doing business in China, Beijing's digital influence will grow in tandem, configuring itself as a technological system that enables new and modern forms of territorialization and territoriality (imperialism).
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the New Geopolitical Order
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has theorized the emergence of a Fourth Industrial Revolution in our era, with keywords like Artificial Intelligence, new technologies, the Internet of Things, and 5G. Just like the First, Second, and Third Industrial Revolutions, this revolution could deconstruct our conception of work, production, and life, but it is already deconstructing the global order towards a new geopolitical era.
China has learned a fundamental lesson: "China believes that power is the key to international affairs, and that technology itself is power. It learned this lesson from Ronald Reagan. The American president won the Cold War through a military buildup that sparked an economic revolution. Military research and development produced many new inventions in the digital age, from microchips to the internet. The Soviet Union surrendered in the face of America's military superiority and industrial growth. China observed and took note." This understanding guides its strategy of technological dominance as a path to global hegemony.
Conclusion
The current global landscape, marked by a rapid technological revolution, underscores China's profound and multi-faceted strategy to reshape the international order. Beijing's commitment to global hegemony is pursued through a comprehensive approach, most notably its "Liminal Warfare". This isn't conventional conflict; it's a subtle, pervasive engagement that leverages every available tool – economic, diplomatic, technological, and non-military – operating "below the threshold" of traditional perception.
At the heart of this strategy lies "cyber power" and the ambition for "cyber sovereignty". China is meticulously building self-sufficiency in critical technologies like 5G and AI, while simultaneously seeking to impose its standards on global internet governance. The Digital Silk Road (DSR) and the e-CNY are not merely infrastructure projects or digital currencies; they are strategic instruments designed to integrate global trade into a China-centric digital ecosystem, collect vast amounts of data, circumvent sanctions, and extend Beijing's influence.
The formal recognition of data as a fundamental factor of production solidifies China's intent to centralize and leverage information for economic and political gain, potentially leading to new forms of "digital imperialism." As the world transitions into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, China's actions are not just about market share; they're about fundamentally altering the rules of global engagement. This strategic vision, honed from observing past geopolitical shifts, presents a unique challenge to Western democracies. Understanding and responding to this integrated, tech-driven pursuit of power will be paramount in shaping the geopolitical landscape of the coming decades.
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