China Power | Diplomacy | East Asia

What Critics Get Wrong About China’s Digital Silk Road

The DSR continues to thrive largely because recipient governments see it as an attractive alternative.

The standard Western critique of China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) runs as follows: Beijing exports surveillance technology and authoritarian governance norms to developing countries under the guise of digital development, creating technological dependencies that serve Chinese strategic interests at the expense of local populations and global digital freedom. It is a compelling narrative. It is also incomplete.

As my research on DSR governance across Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates shows, the initiative operates through what scholars call digitalpolitik: the strategic deployment of digital infrastructure to pursue national interests, shape governance norms, and embed geopolitical influence. The question is not whether China pursues strategic objectives through digital infrastructure – of course it does. So does every major digital power. The question is why so many governments across the developing world continue to deepen DSR engagement despite sustained Western pressure to do otherwise.

The answer is structural, not ideological. China’s cyber sovereignty framework, which asserts state authority over digital infrastructure and data flows, resonates with governments that have watched U.S.-headquartered platform companies set the terms of data governance, determine content moderation standards, and capture the majority of digital value generated in their markets. These governments are not naive about Chinese strategic interests. They are making rational calculations about which form of external dependency is more manageable, and which partner offers more useful technology at lower cost with fewer governance conditions attached.

This is the part of the story that Western policymakers consistently miss. The DSR’s appeal is not primarily a product of Chinese soft power or propaganda. It is a product of the asymmetries and exclusions built into the existing digital order. A governance framework that has in practice served as a vehicle for the........

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