Instead of targeting TikTok and WeChat, the US should work on an alternative to China’s digital silk road

From fibre-optic cables to health care connectivity in emerging markets, China’s digital silk road enables the country to gain both influence and commercial benefit

The US has been making headlines banning Chinese apps at home and opposing Huawei worldwide but offers no comparable programme to China’s

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Sam Olsen is the co-founder of the strategic consultancy MetisAsia and the author of What China Wants.

Published: 9:45pm, 15 Sep 2020Updated: 4:10pm, 15 Oct 2020

Amid the US-led Western clampdown on Chinese technology firms like Huawei and ByteDance, which owns the TikTok app so popular with teenagers, it is easy to overlook the fact that Chinese technological ambitions abroad aren’t limited to the exploits of a handful of companies. Instead, they are part of a wider programme dubbed the “digital silk road”, a subset of the more widely known Belt and Road Initiative.

Launched in 2015, the digital silk road is a mainly private-sector-driven programme, supported by the state, with the aim of enhancing China’s digital presence abroad, and thereby extending its commercial and political influence. It is so far going well, particularly in the emerging world.

Chinese-built fibre-optic cables have transformed connectivity in myriad countries across the planet, from Latin America to Central Asia to the Pacific. The investment has come from both private contracts and government support, in the form of at least US$7 billion in loans and foreign direct investment for fibre-optic cable and telecommunication network projects.