Abstract
The book China’s Digital Silk Road: Setting Standards, Powering Growth by Gerald Chan provides a collation of variegated facets and aspects related to China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) project and the related shifts as well as ripples created by it in the global order. The book undertakes a detailed examination, analysis and articulation of China’s DSR project, which evolved with the prominence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in infrastructure building. According to the author, ‘[I]nfrastructure building has become the centre stage of global development; and digital infrastructure the centre of the centre stage, as it has become the brain of the body of infrastructure’ (p. viii).
In Chapter 1, the author introduces and defines the DSR as a ‘hi-tech arm of the BRI’, whilst recognising that a precise categorisation often ‘depends on the ideological disposition of the observer’ (p. 1). The digital dimension is effective and efficient in the functioning of the ‘brain power’, with data as the ‘building block of information that flows through the DSR’ (Ibid.). The book analyses the impact of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the greater strides in technological interconnectedness and the facets related to Sino-US decoupling to analyse the huge impact, which has led to (re)defining and (re)shaping the character and future of the global political economy (pp. 2–9). According to the book, the Chinese Dream focuses on ‘regaining its former glory’ that it enjoyed during the historical times, and its aspiration ‘to become a digital superpower by 2035’ (p. 3). The chapter could have examined the critical facets of the DSR project, including issues of surveillance and the societal transformations related to it. Chapter 2 focuses on the role and forces driving China’s DSR project, which includes case studies on smart (or safe) cities being built by China (domestically and internationally); the revamping of the global transportation system (LOGINK) and the emergent technologies such as blockchain and cloud computing. The chapter also analyses the competition between Amazon Web Services and Alibaba Cloud in the market of providing information and services. However, the book could have expanded and examined the activities of Chinese technology companies such as Baidu, Tencent, Taobao and JD.com. This would have provided an overall architecture on the level of environment of emergent technologies in China.
Chapter 3 brings focuses on the theoretical framework of geo-developmentalism and in providing a theoretical lens to analyse China’s infrastructure development strategies, activities and features under the BRI. This focuses on the conception by the Chinese leadership such as the win-win (shuang ying), multiple wins (duo ying) and/or common wins (gong ying); infrastructure building under BRI; and on the interlinkages of China’s politico-economic development with geography. The book also examines the emergence of neo-transnationalism, geo-developmentalism and neo-globalisation (pp. 36–38). Interestingly, the utilisation of the framework of geo-developmentalism provides the foundational structure for various facets of China’s DSR project dealt with in the book. Chapter 4 analyses the emergence of China as a science and technology power, especially in the field and development of (emergent) digital technologies, besides providing a case study of Huawei. The chapter provides the interlinkages between technology, the economic rise of China, and the resultant trade war initiated by the Trump Administration. However, the book could have expanded on the challenges of the trade-cum-technology war on companies in China and the West, which would provide the linkages of socio-economic to the advancements in science and technology.
Chapter 5 entails China’s digital economy and the digitalisation of its currency, the e-yuan. The book opines that the e-yuan has the potential to restructure the global financial architecture and the backlash received by the Chinese companies from the West. However, the challenges and implications of the e-yuan in reference to those in other nation states would have provided a comparative approach on the issue. Chapter 6 focuses on China’s role in connectivity and digital network established through cable communications, especially the projects by Chinese companies in Pakistan, the African subcontinent, the Pacific and the Arctic region. According to the chapter, despite the rivalries from the companies based in USA and Europe, China’s activities will reshape the traditional world order. Chapter 7 focuses on the emergence of China as a major actor and the institutionalisation of its activities, cooperation as well as competition in outer space. In the current context, these have a greater influence on international politics, on which China’s role as a major stakeholder is something to be pondered upon.
Chapter 8 focuses on China’s digital diplomacy and trajectory as a major player in high-end (critical) technologies, cyber security and cyber sovereignty, which incidentally disrupts the dominance of the USA and European powers. Accordingly, China’s digital diplomacy began (re)standardising, (re)moulding and (re)structuring the global world order, all of which are directly linked to the emergence of China as a major stakeholder in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Chapter 9 summarises the domestic implications of the DSR and key findings, and examines the Sino-US competition and decoupling for dominating the global market of (high-end) technology and infrastructure connectivity, especially exports of semiconductors and rare earths.
The current international (re)ordering of the world order necessitates the need to understand the importance of China, which has been provided in the book. The book, China’s Digital Silk Road: Setting Standards, Powering Growth, is a must-read for scholars and practitioners of international relations and area studies and succinctly provides valuable and discernible aspects. For any scholar of China studies and international relations, the book provides a coherent and comprehensive understanding of China’s DSR project as well as the foreign policy pathways related to it. The central conjecture of the book, in terms of the core arguments to deal with global institutionalisation digital systems and the international scenarios, has been cogently dealt with by the author. The author deserves a huge appreciation for the categorical approach and effort to examine various facets of the DSR. Despite the increasing scholarly literature on the matter, the author engages with this topic in a much more comprehensive, equitable and academically neutral position. Thus, China’s Digital Silk Road is a reliable source for scholars, academicians, students and possibly laymen to understand the future pathways and undertakings under the most ambitious project of the Chinese State under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.