Since 2020, the Chinese government has strengthened its control over data, algorithms, and digital platform operations.

China still depends on certain foreign technology, hardware, and software to operate its platforms—including sensors, semiconductors, and high-end programmable logic controllers

The Chinese government has also tightened the ability to use workarounds such as VPNs.1

Beijing seeks to create alternative global digital platforms and related architecture that are centered on and controlled by China.

digital platforms are by nature disruptive to established businesses and sectors

China is developing digital platforms to promote Chinese technology and economic competitiveness, enhance political and social controls, and challenge current global trade, technology, energy, information, and financial networks by creating alternatives that it controls.

According to Shiji, over 56% of all hotels in the United States now use its technology in their stack.

A prominent example of a PRC firm operating in this area is China’s state-tied Shiji Group, which operates back-office software systems for the hospitality industry.

through partnerships with leaders in advanced manufacturing such as Germany,

Tencent’s WeChat

hey offer points of connection, exchange, and control.

they are generally understood to be internet-connected and software-based digital spaces that facilitate the exchange of information and the creation of value through the online interactions of businesses and individuals.

China’s digital strategy leverages one-sided market protections and access. Its leading digital platforms—such as Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, DiDi, and TikTok—have a significant global market share as a result of their dominant position in China’s massive domestic market.

by other governments that have sought to use antitrust authorities and other regulatory approaches to encourage innovation and competition.

In absolute terms, China’s domestic market represents around 40% of global e-commerce.1 It has an estimated 1.3 billion mobile internet users and is a top global market for mobile payments. Between 2015 and 2020, China’s digital economy grew faster than any other market, at an annual rate of almost 17%.

his statist approach keeps China’s domestic digital market walled off from foreign competition and global connections not controlled by China while Chinese firms create and expand China’s digital platforms offshore.

China’s digital platforms seek to operationalize its development efforts across the entire technology value chain in hardware, software, and related design, manufacturing, infrastructure, and services.

Digital platforms play a key role in this effort.

are controlled or influenced by China; China’s technology firms have a leadership position; and China governs a significant share of international information flows

These persistent asymmetries due to digital protectionism and state controls allow China to secure a global market position that could become increasingly difficult and costly to counter over time.

to access, analyze, and leverage wide swaths of global data across a range of platforms and applications

China seeks to operationalize its technology development efforts across the entire value chain in hardware, software, and related design, manufacturing, infrastructure, and services

he Chinese government’s global ambitions as conveyed through its Belt and Road Initiative and related Digital Silk Road plans and seek to leverage and integrate the hard and soft infrastructure that China’s firms have established or acquired overseas

China’s digital platforms are the likely place where the full range of China’s technology, economic, and geopolitical efforts, if successful, could converge and solidify China’s position in global markets.

Developing responses that better account for uncertainties around a technology’s trajectory or a country’s ability to translate concepts into capabilities.

Taking a more multidisciplinary approach to due diligence on decisions related to digital infrastructure.

Recalibrating data security policy and privacy frameworks to account for the fact that PRC regulations on each are not motivated by the same drivers as in liberal democracies.

decision-makers must bear in mind that digital technology is constantly evolving.

China’s export of digital infrastructure abroad is a critical element of its broader digital strategy.

eople’s Bank of China officials conduct monitoring using big-data analytics that flag unusual activity that might indicate illegal activity (as defined in the PRC). The People’s Bank of China might also seek to more closely monitor a specific subset of individuals and entities who are targets of the regime.

CEP is already integrated with digital payment technology such as Alipay, which is accepted globally

digital currency electronic payment (DCEP)

he real focus should be on the implications of DCEP as a financial technology.

The standardization also embeds a values system that ultimately runs against liberal democratic values

Chinese technology companies are comparable to U.S. companies in that they tend to occupy all layers of the “technology stack”: the physical layer, the network layer, and the application layer.

For example, one GTCOM product, Language Box, was reportedly integrated into a Huawei smart conferencing solution sold as part of smart-city packages.

Global Tone Communications Technology (GTCOM) is a company controlled by the Central Propaganda Department that engages in global big-data collection.

This does not mean that Hisense will use the data for purposes beyond business, but it does mean that the company has the ability to do so.

One such company, Hisense, is a leading global company that sells smart products at more affordable prices than its competitors (using the Roku TV interface).

In the United States, this data has been sold to political campaigns.

For China, there is strategic value in having access to data from which it can extract valuable information to maintain an internationally competitive edge.

These devices ultimately allow for greater visibility and transparency about the state of global supply chains.

The IIoT refers to “the billions of industrial devices—anything from the machines in a factory to the engines inside an aeroplane—that are filled with sensors, connected to wireless networks, and gathering and sharing data.”

The vendor then “can be subject to adverse extrajudicial direction, or the vendor’s poor cyber security posture means they are subject to adverse external interference.”

The risk of a country allowing a China-based company to supply or build a data center is equivalent to allowing a high-risk vendor to build a country’s 5G network.

Data centers are another common type of infrastructure Chinese companies have won contracts for or have built overseas.

Within Serbia there have been concerns about the system being used to target the incumbent government’s political opponents, but the projects persist.

Serbia

Despite—or in some cases because of—the strong link between smart city technologies and coercive state activity in China, these solutions have been exported globally.

In addition to surveillance cameras, Sharp Eyes is focused on building video/image/information exchange and sharing platforms and county-village-township comprehensive management centers.

Skynet refers to video monitoring equipment that is mostly used at major intersections, law-and-order checkpoints, and other public assembly locations

Smart cities, or safe cities, are another example of a project that PRC companies (most notably Huawei) are contracted to deliver overseas.

The data derived from these Chinese-provided technologies overseas becomes part of the party-state’s data ecosystem.

If the issue is framed as “a good technology can be misused,” rather than “digital and data-driven technologies can be used to achieve multiple objectives at once, and those uses could be (subjectively) both good and bad,” then the major game-changing effect of the technology in the lens of geopolitical competition is overlooked

When aggregated, data consisting of seemingly innocuous information can become extremely valuable.

What is overlooked, however, are the fundamental concerns around who has control over systems that enable information flows.

these laws are applicable anywhere in the world where Chinese companies have operations. Even if the companies providing digital infrastructure are acting according to their own market interests rather than by direction of the state, the state can leverage that expansion and market success for its own purposes if and when it chooses.

Article 18 is clear that personal information handlers need not notify individuals that their data is being accessed if other laws and regulations provide that the purpose for that access “be kept confidential or need not be announced.”19

Chinese companies are bound by PRC law no matter the political jurisdiction in which their business operations are located.

political security is at the core of data security and state security.

The term “central state security leading mechanism” in legal documents is synonymous with the Central State Security Commission (CSSC), which is a CCP agency led by Xi Jinping.

The recently enacted Data Security Law (DSL) and Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) reinforce these risks. Articles 4 and 5 of the DSL state that the effort to guarantee data security must adhere to the party-state’s “comprehensive state security outlook,” and that the “central state security leading mechanism” is “responsible for decision-making and overall coordination on data security work, and researching, drafting, and guiding the implementation of national data security strategies and relevant major guidelines and policies.”1

not regulating how data passing through a data center or other infrastructure is used.

By controlling the means, one controls the message.

there was an assumption, within liberal democracies in particular, that authoritarianism would be severely undermined and democracy would emerge stronger as improved information flows stymied censorship efforts.

Information security is a prime example

China has recognized, for example, that securing the digital economy, especially as it relates to data security and information security, requires having sufficient control over one’s own digital ecosystem

technology is a tool that helps the party accomplish fusing its political control with China’s economic prosperity and “social development.

digital infrastructure is a key to solving problems in governance and improving its political control.

fiber-optic cables, data centers, and IoT devices enable connectivity in smart cities.

he Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), or other data-dependent environments such as smart cities and smart manufacturing. This infrastructure, better described as “digital infrastructure,”

“new infrastructure,” artificial intelligence, 5G, and data centers.

George Bowden, “MI6 Boss Warns of China ‘Debt Traps and Data Traps,’” BBC, November 30, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59474365.

“If you allow another country to gain access to really critical data about your society, over time that will erode your sovereignty, you no longer have control over that data.

go beyond both surveillance and espionage

in promoting and subsidizing their expansion abroad,

Peter Hartcher, “Huawei? No Way! Why Australia Banned the World’s Biggest Telecoms Firm,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 21, 2021, https://www.smh.com.au/national/huawei-no-way-why-australia-banned-the-world-s-biggest-telecoms-firm-20210503-p57oc9.html; “Huawei 5G Kit Must Be Removed from UK by 2027,” BBC, July 14, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53403793; Gautam Chikermane, “No Huawei in 5G Is a Start, No China in Critical Infrastructure Should Be Next,” Observer Research Foundation, Digital Frontiers, May 5, 2021, https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/no-huawei-in-5g-is-a-start-no-china-in-critical-infrastructure-should-be-next; and “Huawei Ban Timeline: Detained CFO Makes Deal with U.S. Justice Department,” CNET, September 30, 2021, https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/huawei-ban-timeline-detained-cfo-makes-deal-with-us-justice-department

to effectively ban Huawei from providing 5G equipment in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and numerous other countries, as well as the debate around those decisions.

o violate or exploit globally accepted data privacy norms

he largest issue is that China has a political system that is fundamentally different from liberal democracies and that is embedded in the digital technologies and infrastructure researched and developed in China and exported globally.

embed standards that go against liberal democratic values

he government’s strategic interests

for Chinese digital companies to gain greater market access

access to, and control over, data internationally

export of digital infrastructure

an edge in setting international standards.

unmatched industrial capacity that allows it to build the physical infrastructure of the digital world.

its centralization allows it to more effectively leverage that scale than any other leading global player.

unmatched size grants it unmatched ability to produce and access data:

but innovation may no longer be the determinative asset it once was

The last industrial revolution, which was catalyzed by the emergence of technology as a factor of production, rewarded innovative capacity as a critical source of national strength.

These conversations ignore the more foundational, strategic contest for the global architecture.

Beijing works to shape the rules of the digital environment from the top down by setting international technical standards and exporting a China-centered system of digital governance.

China’s overarching digital ambition is to seize the opportunity of the digital revolution, control data as a factor of production, become the network great power, and leapfrog to leadership of the world order. This is how Beijing frames the competition for and of the fourth industrial revolution.

mazon’s real power lies in its ability to shape the information ecosystem in which users shop.

it has the dominant information platform.

the player that controls digitized logistics hubs can shape international shipments of cobalt without having to deploy troops to capture mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo;

power is therefore a function of both capturing data and controlling the architecture of digital exchange: information infrastructure like 5G and smart logistics hubs, platforms like social media and digital trade hubs, and the technical standards and governance systems that define their operations and evolution.

Strategic, revolutionary power in the digital revolution lies a step beyond accessing data—it lies in the ability to shape data and its movement.

owever, data is not like land or labor. Its strategic value does not only come from access or ownership.

China has a first-mover advantage in the digital economy and is expected to achieve a revival in the fourth industrial revolution.4

Technological changes in different periods not only bring about industrial changes, but also affect changes in the world structure.

“With the advent of the digital economy, data elements have become the new engine for economic development. Data is a new production factor, a basic resource, and a strategic resource.

Today’s industrial revolution, the digital revolution, is a function of data having emerged—alongside land, labor, capital, and technology—as a factor of production.

Beijing benefits from a set of asymmetric, structural advantages—scale, centralization, and industrial capacity

They reveal that China is turning traditionally commercial and cooperative global domains into battlefields of nation-state competition.

China’s digital ambitions threaten the ability of companies to compete fairly in the international marketplace, of information to circulate freely, and of governments to defend themselves.

China intends to define this digital architecture by building its physical infrastructure and corresponding virtual networks and platforms, setting the technical standards that govern them, and shaping the emerging global digital governance regime.

Beijing’s global digital strategy rests on seizing this opportunity by competing to control international data, its movement, and, by extension, the production, distribution, and consumption of resources and ideas internationally.

A New Type of Geopolitical Power: China’s Competitive Strategy for the Digital Revolution

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Frequently Asked Questions

defends the human person in her dignity and the most profound choices.

three dimensions of the relationship with himself, relationship with God, and relationship with others,” he said.

they carry within them a new anthropological vision that differs significantly, if not substantially, from the idea of the Christian proposal, especially in the sense of a conception of rights in an exclusively individualistic form.”

“Given the misunderstandings that exist around free speech on platforms I sometimes think it is hard to grasp until you’re on the frontline having to make these decisions to get the gravity & difficulty of the work,” tweeted Esther Crawford, a Twitter executive whose own social network, Squad, was acquired by Twitter. “I’m very pro free speech but there must be limits for the health of a platform and to ensure the safety of people.”

The company has gotten much better at detecting fake accounts and disinformation, for example, and also was the first social network to penalize Trump for violating its policies. (Trump is now banned from Twitter.)

In 2019, Twitter also developed labels that would cover up tweets by powerful people and politicians who broke the service’s rules but whose tweets were considered newsworthy. And in 2020, it developed new policies to tackle misinformation during the 2020 election and the pandemic.

Twitter’s shift from being a largely unmoderated platform into one with more robust content moderation took place a year after the 2016 presidential election, when it was revealed that Russian operatives spread disinformation on social media to try to tilt the election outcome toward Trump.

“To [many of the older tech leaders], the Internet represented freedom, a new frontier, a flowering of the human spirit, and a great optimism that technology could birth a new golden age of mankind,” Wong, a Silicon Valley pioneer, said in a widely-viewed thread. “It’s not that the principle is no longer valid (it is), it’s that the practical issues around upholding that principle are different, because the world has changed. ”

long subscribed to the ideal that more speech is the best antidote to harmful or bad speech.

“My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” he said.

to make available to the public the company’s algorithm, helping people understand how content surfaces on the platform.

“Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square, so it’s just really important that people have the, both the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.”

“What Musk seemingly fails to recognize is that to truly have free speech today, you need moderation,”

have spent billions of dollars and employed armies of people to create and enforce policies to reduce hate speech, misinformation and other toxic communication that degrades public discourse.

his ambition for what the platform should be — a largely unpoliced space rid of censorship — is naive, would hurt the company’s growth prospects and would render the platform unsafe.

He also insisted that the algorithm Twitter uses to rank its content, deciding what hundreds of millions of users see on the service every day, should be public for users to audit.

Mr. Musk argued that taking Twitter private would allow more free speech to flow on the platform. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” he said in an interview at the TED conference on Thursday.

they are responsible for the driving task, thereby automating the movement of people and goods to reduce accidents and congestion

Advancing automated driving systems (ADS) technology

The privilege of issuing money is synonymous with economic power.

It makes it possible to trade products and services across great geographic distances, between people who may not know each other and have no particular reason to trust each other.

Money is one of humankind’s most remarkable innovations.

when it comes to offset printing we always recommend doing your own research into local printers, since quotes will vary from project to project, as will the customer experience. 

If you’re after a few beautiful copies to hand out to friends, or you need them for a book signing or book fair, or you simply feel your publishing journey won’t be complete until you hold your book in the flesh, Blurb’s standout quality once again makes it a great option. 

With Blurb, ordering a batch is much cheaper than printing your books one at a time, and no matter how image-heavy your book is you can be pretty certain of a high-quality print that’ll help sell your book to retailers and their customers.

you’re better off printing with IngramSpark.

To maximize the benefits of both of these printers, you can distribute to Amazon via KDP Print but opt out of their expanded distribution. Then use IngramSpark to distribute everywhere but Amazon!

If you want to distribute to non-Amazon stores, use IngramSpark.

Blurb

When someone makes an order, an on-demand printer will print a copy of your book and make sure it reaches the customer without any effort from you.

Offset printing usually involves storing and shipping the books yourself — and often the hassle isn’t worth it for self-publishing authors.

Offset printing usually involves storing and shipping the books yourself — and often the hassle isn’t worth it for self-publishing authors.

fear that comes from the idea that AI will ultimately ‘overthrow’ humanity as superior beings.

The combination of AI and religion has been applauded by one member of the Vatican as “an opportunity for evangelization.”

chatbots and algorithms are the real faces of AI in religion.

the Vatican went a step further to create an exorcist robot.

Just as it is almost impossible to take religion out of humanity, it is just about the same with artificial intelligence.

how an advanced enough AI could achieve consciousness and potentially be one of God’s messengers to make our lives easier.

While some denominations have welcomed artificial intelligence, such as the Vatican, in creating an exorcist robot, others remain wary of fears that it could lead to the end times.

Balance Independence and Collaboration

10. Reedsy

Draft2Digital

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to adopt an inclusive narrative and language, and to move towards more inclusive platforms, products and services.

It is our duty to navigate these differences with empathy and to strive for meaningful inclusion of all cultures, genders, sexualities, races, abilities and disabilities into proper global society.

inclusivity is a mode of operation

Differences in age, culture, geography, daily habits, societal structures (among other things) can lead to significantly different expectations about what constitutes a satisfying user experience.

cherish any occasions for happiness and enjoyment.

With bold, animated, and interactive typography as the centerpiece, many websites also do without the use of any background images — for a clean and sophisticated look.

With a careful selection of fonts, websites are making bolder statements than ever, to catch their audience’s attention and to communicate their messages effectively.

Stylish hero sections with big bold typography and little to no imagery will be everything in the following year.

he did not offer any alternative solutions for those concerned that Apple's control over the App Store allows it to charge app developers exorbitant fees or subject developers to capricious or unfair rules.

could become so commonplace that important apps will only be installable by that method, rather than through the App Store

That means data-hungry companies would be able to avoid our privacy rules, and once again track our users against their will.

The current iteration of the Digital Markets Act no longer includes a sideloading requirement, but it is still not finalized.

the European Union's Digital Markets Act and the United States' Open App Markets Act, which incorporate language about forcing platform holders like Apple to allow sideloading.

Apple are "deeply concerned about regulations that would undermine privacy and security in service of some other aim," like protecting competition.

a new platform should utilise design thinking, prioritising the experience of its users: time-poor decision-makers in need of accessible, concise, and tailored analysis and advice.

the “cable”, a platform that, as its name suggests, was designed around 20th century technology

Staff should be encouraged to take career breaks to study and work elsewhere by making leave without pay a right rather than a rare privilege.

“risks losing the ‘war for talent,’

it would elevate diplomacy as the government’s primary foreign policy tool.

as a “central agency” rather than a “line agency”, to adopt Canberra bureaucrat-speak, joining the departments of Prime Minister & Cabinet (PMC), Treasury, and Finance

to lead a whole-of-government national security strategy.

alignment of means with ends

more aspiration than strateg

Russia accounts for just 2.3 percent of German trade. While that isn’t much in the grander scheme of things, the modest trade volumes also help explain the continued allure of Russia to German business.

After the Berlin Wall fell, “Go East” quickly became German industry’s rallying cry as the boardroom engineers behind Europe’s economic motor searched for new markets and cheap skilled labor to keep the pistons firing.