BeiDou and Digital Silk Road – The Background
China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) which was officially incorporated in the year 2017 as separate from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), seeks to endorse digital connectivity and infrastructure in BRI member states. The importance of promoting investment in digital infrastructure stems from the domestic demands to export Chinese tech and the demands from the BRI member states for better digital connectivity which can improve their economic conditions.
The DSR seeks to promote 5G telecommunication, satellite systems, integrated tech system and financial system. There is another aspect of DSR. According to the 2016 Chinese White Paper on space activities, it has emphasized on the importance of BeiDou and has planned to provide basic services of BeiDou to the member states along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The BeiDou has been considered as the “digital glue” for the roads, railways, ports and industrial parks that China builds to extend its presence and influence. Also, the Chinese Communist Party Premier Xi Jinping has called BeiDou “one of the most important achievements China has made in the 40 years of reform and openings”.
(For an In-Depth analysis on how China uses Digital Silk Road to expand its Global Influence, please click Here.)
Since connectivity is the crux of BRI, satellite technology is going to complement their hard infrastructure and digital infrastructure projects. Thereby, the various facets of BRI have been meticulously designed to create interdependence among various projects.
What is BeiDou?
In 2014, the China Great Wall Industry Corporation and China Satellite Communication Co. Ltd- have come together to form an International Alliance of Satellite Application Service and have initiated the “Space Silk Road” to enable cooperation of space-based technology in the BRI connectivity projects.
In this context, BeiDou Satellite is China’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) which provides Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) data worldwide. This system was primarily developed for military usage but now it is promoted for civilian uses as well. The services of BeiDou is locally used in transportation, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, hydrological monitoring, meteorological forecasting, communication, power dispatching, disaster relief, public security and other services. In the aspects of global services which are driven by market-approach, BeiDou will cater to the navigation services required by the e-commerce, mobile and location-based services. The global services are further divided into two other services:
- The Open Service: The Open Service is free of charge and open to all users worldwide.
- The Authorized Service: Whereas the Authorized Service is aimed at providing military grade signal.
As BeiDou provides accurate PNT data of any operating GNSS constellation, thereby it acts as an enabler for Chinese infrastructure and technology exports via BRI and DSR.
Concerns regarding BeiDou
The fact that China has moved beyond investing on hard infrastructure and have incorporated cooperation over digital and space areas, was a way to meticulously address the existing gaps in BRI projects and hence making it multidimensional. The need to look at China’s BeiDou services has come at a critical juncture when the world is witnessing an intense tech-competition between the U.S. and China.
China’s attempt to extend its digital and space tech services to BRI-member states was one of the ways to showcase its emerging tech supremacy and to open new market avenues for its major private players to address its industrial overcapacity. Beijing has already built 120 worldwide ground monitoring stations abroad so as to support its BeiDou network.
Given the context, China has been promoting BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS)- related application which will expand its global downstream markets. However, the most important concern relates to the issue of data security. It is alleged that the BDS will allow China to track users of the system by deploying malware transmitted through its navigation signals or messaging capabilities. Once technological integration takes place deep into any state’s economy and security, China will take leverage out of such kind of technological dependence.
However, if BeiDou continues to enhance its PNT accuracy rates it will endure appealing to states who are in need of improving their critical infrastructure. At the same time, not all states will be eager to address the data security concerns regarding BeiDou due to different set of opportunities and costs. Hence, this leaves space for Beijing to exploit the dependencies which have been created among states over time.
