Promoting digital authoritarianism : A study of China’s Digital Silk Road

Abstract: China’s influence is increasing steadily in all corners of the world. One of China’s foreign policy goals is to become a technological superpower by 2025. An important part of that goal is the Digital Silk Road (DSR), a sub-project to China’s massive infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative. The DSR is on one hand contributing to positive technological developments, especially in developing countries. But on the other hand, it has gotten substantial criticism for being a front for spreading China’s digital authoritarian model and for giving authoritarian regimes the tools to effectively repress citizens and violate human rights. The aim of this study is twofold. The first aim is to examine and map out how China might be promoting autocracy through the DSR, this will contribute to a deeper empirical understanding. The second aim is to give a theoretical contribution by categorizing autocracy promotion and testing the value of active and passive autocracy promotion in relation to China and the DSR. To conduct the analysis, I will draw on literature about autocracy promotion and digital authoritarianism. The existing literature is divided on whether or not China is promoting autocracy, and I will thus be arguing that technological advances, and the DSR, makes it problematic to claim that China is not engaged in autocracy promotion. Therefore, I seek to contribute to the existing literature. The results show that China is in fact involved in autocracy promotion through the different DSR projects. It also shows that China’s support, in some cases, have been crucial in providing authoritarian regimes with repressive technologies. The results also indicate that promoting autocracy might not be an outspoken goal or strategy from China, but rather an unintended consequence when trying to reach domestic political and economic goals.