How China uses technological leadership for soft power expansion

With special guests:
Chris Edwards
Paul Dempsey

The Digital Silk Road is China’s technological arm of its belt and road initiative. While the country has been known as the world’s biggest manufacturer, the Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has increasingly pivoted towards sectors that are expected to define future economic success, such as AI, chipmaking and 5G.

The Digital Silk Road also allows China to expand its soft power influence beyond domestic borders. It uses foreign investments – often from developing countries in Latin America and Africa – to provide jobs for its glut of engineers. It also gives Chinese companies such as Huawei the opportunity to become technology leaders on a global scale in a sector previously dominated by US firms such as Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook.

E+T editors Jack Loughran and Tim Fryer discuss how successful the initiative has been with regular contributors Paul Dempsey, and Chris Edwards who wrote this issue’s lead feature on the topic.