What Xi Jinping’s charm offensive in Southeast Asia means for our digital rights
This week, as the trade war between the United States and China escalates, Xi Jinping is on a five-day tour of Southeast Asia, visiting Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia.
During meetings with officials, the Chinese leader is seeking a raft of new trade and business deals.
China no doubt sees the visits as another key opportunity: to advance its vision of global digital governance. During his visits, Xi Jinping will be looking to deepen cooperation on connectivity, security and law enforcement, and digital infrastructure, and to dislodge the US as the dominant force in the AI sector.
Our research on China’s regional digital influence demonstrates that the kind of cooperation Xi Jinping wants to build on has already fuelled rising digital repression in the region. Further strengthening ties with countries in the Asia Pacific illustrates China’s global ambition to reshape norms of global digital governance, away from an open and free internet and towards a model based on government control, surveillance and censorship.
Vietnam already models its cybersecurity law on China’s, opting for the installation of centralised systems that control and censor information, especially anything critical of the regime, contributing to the growing fragmentation of the internet.
In Cambodia, China has successfully positioned its ‘national tech champions’, including Huawei, as market leaders. Cambodia’s National Internet Gateway, with its ambition to ‘disconnect all network connections that affect national income, security, social order, morality, culture, traditions, and customs’, echoes the Great Firewall of China.
And in Malaysia, partnerships with Chinese companies on AI and surveillance have been extensive – including with SenseTime, which works with law enforcement to enhance facial recognition surveillance capabilities, and has supplied facial recognition technology for surveillance and mass internment of Uyghurs and other minorities in China.
As the chaos of US tariffs dominates the headlines, it is vital that we don’t lose sight of rising digital repression. For this, the international community must reaffirm its commitment to transparent internet governance, and centre human rights in its approaches to cybersecurity and emerging technologies.
Now more than ever we need to stay vigilant, and to stand up for a digital space where free expression, the right to information and our privacy are vigorously defended.
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