The database released by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) shows that Chinese entities have provided more than US$ 17 billion for Digital Silk Road projects completed since 2013. Their breakdown: at least US$ 7 billion in loans and FDI for fiber-optic cable and telecommunication network projects completed since 2013; more than US$ 10 billion for e-commerce and mobile payment deals; for smart and safe city-related projects, at least several hundred million USD; and for data and research centers, the available information is too limited to make an estimate. Three main motivations drive the Digital Silk Road: (i) the wider BRI push to help Chinese companies become global champions; (ii) Beijing’s ambition to achieve broadly defined high-tech leadership; and (iii) the explicit goal of spreading China’s homegrown cyber norms and standards by leveraging the strength of its IT sector. China’s fiber optic cable and telecommunications equipment industries got clear market share goals in the “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy. Beijing has since aided their international expansion with policy support and massive lines of cheap credit. As with BRI energy and transport projects, the China Development Bank (CDB), the Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM) and state-owned commercial banks have provided most funding for ICT hardware projects. For instance, India’s telecom operator Bharti Airtel received US$ 2.5 billion and Russia’s Rostelecom US$ 600 million, in part to purchase Huawei and ZTE equipment. Another concessionary loan allowed for Huawei Marine’s realization of the 6,000-km South Atlantic Inter Link (SAIL) fiber-optic cable connecting Cameroon to Brazil for a China Unicom-led consortium with a Cameroon partner. The State Council’s “National Informatization Strategy” (2016 - 2020) called upon China’s thriving private tech giants of the digital economy – Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu – to support the Digital Silk Road while becoming global leaders in areas like e-commerce and mobile payments. After Xi Jinping’s call for China to become a “cyber superpower”, the CCP’s “Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission” depicted China’s tech giants’ growing global market share, the spread of Chinese standards, and increasing influence on discourse and legal norms as part of the same effort. The normative side of China’s vision – promoted at the annual World Internet Conferences in Wuzhen and at the UN – is centered on what it calls “cyber sovereignty,” strong data localization requirements and censorship. As part of its diplomatic outreach, China also formed a digital economy cooperation initiative with seven other countries – including aspiring EU member Serbia – and signed Digital Silk Road cooperation agreements with 16 countries overall. While Chinese activities related to the Digital Silk Road make an important contribution to providing Internet access to more communities in developing and emerging economies; quite in line with European efforts to do so, however, China has simultaneously buttressed the spread of digital authoritarianism and is mounting a normative challenge to EU regulations and European norms that support Internet freedoms and multi-stakeholder governance. Authoritarian governments have often received hi-tech surveillance technology - sometimes in the context of smart city projects - that they might otherwise have not been able to afford. As a result, their position is bolstered, and their control and suppression of society strengthened. Beijing is seeking to make diplomatic allies in its quest to shape international cyber norms, particularly via two UN-mandated working groups (the Group of Governmental Experts and the Open-Ended Working Group). Ultimately, China’s politics in these (and other) matters underlie the lack of trust that has turned the role of its companies in European critical ICT infrastructure into such a controversial issue. China provides generous state aid to support its geo-political vision. On top of project-related policy bank funding, state-owned banks gave companies like ZTE and Huawei generous concessionary credit lines amounting to US$ 20 - 30 billion in the years prior to the BRI. Under the Digital Silk Road umbrella, they have often been able – when deals were not directly subsidized by Chinese loans to recipient countries – to offer equipment up to 30 – 40 percent cheaper than that provided by Europe.
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