By Frank Hersey
Chinese technologies and tactics to tackle dissent and control internet use are spreading to countries along the Digital Silk Road, according to activists speaking for the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters.
They fear that China itself may collect data.
The TRF report includes the case of people protesting job losses at a Hong Kong-listed casino in Phnom Penh, where drones flew above them as they spoke.
Cambodian activists say they are under constant surveillance by technology provided by China through digital surveillance packages.
Activists claim that the technologies are used without a legal framework or public consultation.
They claim that technologies such as AI facial recognition have been used to discriminate against Uyghurs in innovative city projects in China.
The Digital Silk Road is part of the larger “One Belt and One Road” Initiative to raise China’s global status through major infrastructure projects, aid and political support.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Digital Silk Road focuses on improving recipient telecommunications networks, e-commerce, smart cities, surveillance and helping Chinese companies export their technologies to recipient countries.
Cambodia signed an agreement with China on biometric surveillance and DNA screening equipment in 2021, VOA reported.
China has installed more than a thousand CCTV cameras in Phnom Penh since 2015. A government spokesman told TRF that the surveillance devices are to fight crime.
The country is building a system similar to China’s Internet firewall to block websites.
Cambodia is also developing a biometric digital ID and civil registry system.
In Myanmar, Chinese firms are building 4G and 5G networks and facial recognition systems. The junta has copied China’s cyber laws, such as blocking Facebook and Twitter.
Activists there fear facial recognition is targeting protesters.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), a think-tank in Washington DC, estimates that Chinese AI surveillance technologies are now being implemented in more than 50 countries that are part of the BRI.
ASD, another US think tank, is concerned that China is collecting data through these systems.
Similar concerns have recently been raised much further along the Silk Road from Beijing, with Serbia’s safe city project raising fears at home and abroad.
