China: The rise of digital repression in the Indo-Pacific

In this report, ARTICLE 19 examines the Digital Silk Road (DSR) as a platform for advancing China’s model of digital authoritarianism, and seeks to equip civil society and other stakeholders with the necessary background and context to inform advocacy and policy making. The report outlines internet freedom and human rights concerns associated with the DSR, especially those related to the right to freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy, through case studies from the Indo-Pacific, where China has prioritized much of its DSR activity.

The report defines the DSR as an umbrella concept for evolving digital policies and priorities under China’s larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), rather than a distinct policy on its own. It is a critical element of China’s ambition to become a global technological superpower by developing the technology and policy to reshape global norms.

The Indo-Pacific will retain its strategic significance for China as it rolls out next-generation tech and seeks partners in normalizing its authoritarian approach to digital governance. For this reason, assessing China’s regional partnerships and what they mean for the deterioration of internet freedom and rising digital repression in the Indo-Pacific is important to an understanding of China’s ambitions to rewire the world and rewrite the rules that govern the digital space.

The report begins by establishing a common understanding of China’s domestic landscape for digital authoritarianism as a lens through which to see its approach to global digital infrastructure and governance. It focuses on how the Chinese Communist Party has systematically converted the tech sector – whose national champions, such as Huawei, ZTE, and Alibaba Group, have been at the forefront of DSR projects – into proxies for Party priorities. The Party’s capture of all sectors of society is emblematic of China’s leader Xi Jinping’s totalitarian government. Building on this, the report outlines legal frameworks in China, such as the National Intelligence and Cybersecurity Laws that impose obligations on individuals and institutions to perform censorship and surveillance functions, contrary to international human rights law. 

The report then presents the evolution of China’s domestic and foreign policy priorities and stated intentions under the DSR. 

Through DSR partnerships, China has packaged its model as the prevailing best practice, often masked as support for innovation centers, exchanges, or broader digital diplomacy initiatives, especially on issues relating to cybersecurity. This is intended to tip the scales in global adoption to influence more states to employ Chinese norms, accelerating internet fragmentation. In the hands of authoritarian states, this has contributed to increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and information and the right to privacy, and other acts of digital repression.

China has often prioritized the Indo-Pacific under the DSR, with countries such as Cambodia, Pakistan, and Thailand among the first adopters. Six of the ten countries most globally exposed to China’s malign influence, according to the Taiwan-based Doublethink Lab’s China Index, are based in the Indo-Pacific. Regionally, the ARTICLE 19 Global Expression Report finds the state of expression in the region in stark decline over the past decade. Of the countries examined in this report, Malaysia and Nepal are ranked as ‘restricted’ while Cambodia and Thailand are ‘in crisis’.

The protection and promotion of human rights compels states to develop transparency rules over the ownership of telecommunications infrastructure. The freedom of expression requires digital infrastructure that is ‘robust, universal and regulated in a way that maintains it as a free, accessible and open space for all stakeholders’.

Each country in this report has benefitted from development assistance and DSR related projects from China. The case studies examine infrastructure or digital governance partnerships in these countries, focusing on collaboration around 5G, submarine fibre optic cable and satellite systems, digital economies, and cyber security related laws and policies. Each case study is informed by open-source media reports and feedback from civil society experts in the respective countries to ensure that it highlights the areas of digital partnership with China that appear most prominent and concerning for civil society in that country.

Embracing China-style digital authoritarianism, since 2021 Cambodia has worked to impose its own version of the Great Firewall under a National Internet Gateway. Malaysia has not declined to this level of authoritarianism, but signs point to concerning ongoing partnerships with Chinese firms where policy changes could have serious consequences. In Nepal, development support from China in exchange for cracking down on Tibetan refugees has been ongoing, while recent changes in cybersecurity policy point to flirtations with a Chinese-style firewall. And in Thailand, since a military coup in 2014, the country’s decline into digital dictatorship has been supported by cooperation agreements with China, leading to a range of cybercrime and cybersecurity legislation and interest in a China-style firewall. Uyghur refugees have also been caught in the crosshairs between China and host countries including Thailand. The report concludes with recommendations for various actors.

We consider the report a step in the right direction of supporting civil society, including journalists and other human rights defenders, and policymakers with the information necessary to inform future research, advocacy, and policymaking.

Nepal 

Nepal hosts the largest population of Tibetan refugees outside of India, making the control of the Tibetan community a core priority in China’s relationship with the country. In March 2008, months before Beijing was to host the Olympics Games, Tibetans in Lhasa and Kathmandu gathered in peaceful protest to mark ‘Tibetan National Uprising Day’, the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation. China responded with violence. Police in Nepal also responded with excessive force. The incidents raised international attention on China’s persecution of the Tibetan community and the diaspora. A year later, China redoubled development support in Nepal in exchange for assistance in addressing so-called ‘anti-China or separatist activists’ within its borders. China’s increasingly dominant position in Nepal has arguably contributed to restrictions on Tibetans’ right to freedom of expression and assembly, and to broader deteriorating internet freedom in Nepal.

Since 2014, China has been a major source of FDI in Nepal. In 2020, it accounted for around 71 per cent of all FDI and in 2022, Chinese media reported Chinese investors’ commitment to further increasing FDI.

Nepal joined the BRI in 2017, and since then the two countries have collaborated to develop Nepal’s transportation and digital infrastructure. In September 2021, Xi Jinping stressed the need for cooperation between Nepal and China to, among other things, ‘advance on a priority basis cooperation on … digital economy and connectivity’. In March 2023, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal urged development partners, including China, to support Nepal’s aspirations to graduate from Least Developed Country status by 2026. To achieve this, he announced, Nepal would seek to strengthen trade and investment opportunities with China.

People in Nepal have protested against this cooperation and called for the cancellation of BRI projects, concerned about the risks of debt and use of Chinese companies in virtually every project. Moreover, there is anger over proposed infrastructure projects that would displace large numbers of people. Civil society has also expressed concerns in interviews with ARTICLE 19 over China’s potential malign influence over Nepal’s internet freedom.

Nepal police arrest a Tibetan Buddhist nun protesting the Chinese crackdown in Tibet near the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu on 5 May 2008. (Photo: Gopal Chitrakar/ Reuters)

Digital infrastructure 

State-owned Nepal Telecom (NT), Ncell, and Smartcell – Nepal’s three largest telecoms – all use equipment manufactured by Chinese technology companies. 

In 2019, NT partnered with China Communication Services or Comservice40 (CCS) and ZTE to expand its 4G network and improve high-speed internet. CCS supplied equipment procured from Huawei. In 2021, in conversation with ZTE, Ncell’s CEO acknowledged that over a decade of partnership, ZTE had met 60 per cent of the company’s wireless network needs, and that ‘ZTE and Ncell will continue to strengthen the collaboration … to the further development of Nepal’s telecommunications industry’. All three of Nepal’s major telecoms have contracted with Huawei to upgrade their existing 4G networks to 5G. In February 2023, NT announced the start of its long-anticipated 5G trial. This trial will be conducted only among the company’s employees, and it is not yet known when the 5G network will go live for the general public. 

In January 2018, the Nepal–China Optical Fibre Link Project began operations, based on an initial agreement between NT and the state-owned China Telecom in 2016. The fibre optic network connects the two countries, allowing Nepal to purchase internet from Chinese firms and ending its sole dependence on India for internet bandwidth. China’s ambassador to Nepal at the time, Yu Hong,41 commented that the bandwidth project would play a crucial role in enhancing partnership between the countries.

China’s ongoing economic support through BRI and related digital infrastructure development in Nepal remains predicated on Nepal’s ongoing embrace of China’s political narratives and willingness to engage in surveillance and persecution of Tibetans in Nepal.

In an interview with Chinese state media outlet China Global Television Network, China Telecom Global General Manager Deng Fiaofeng42 stated: ‘We want to build a grand corridor and a big platform for telecommunications. I’d call this an “information centred high-speed link” along the Belt and Road routes.’

In addition to network infrastructure development, ZTE and Huawei have taken a lead in developing data storage systems and constructing data centres in Nepal. For example, at the Huawei Connect 2022 conference held on 20 December 2022 in Kathmandu, Nicholas Ma, president of Huawei for Asia-Pacific, affirmed the tech company’s support for Nepal’s digital economy by agreeing to support the country with cloud and data centre infrastructure, in addition to ensuring digital connectivity. 

In February 2023, Ncell announced the launch of its new data centre in Lalitpur. The centre, which, according to Ncell, is the largest in Nepal, cost USD 15.1 million to produce and was constructed in collaboration with Huawei.

Tibetans caught between China and Nepal

Since 2008, Nepal has signed a number of security and ‘intelligence sharing’ agreements with China, in particular relating to targeting the Tibetan community. Nepal has incrementally embraced a China-style surveillance infrastructure in part to surveil and monitor Tibetans, under direct pressure from China. 

As of 2019, the police operated 1,249 CCTV cameras across Nepal, although some have speculated to ARTICLE 19 that many likely do not function. There is a high concentration of CCTV cameras around Buddhist sites, fuelling speculation that Tibetan Buddhists are their main target. According to an internal police study, there is a plan to install more than 21,000 CCTV cameras across the Kathmandu Valley in the coming years. There is some evidence that this surveillance equipment has been provided by China, but procurement records are not public and there is no public reporting beyond speculation. 

Pointing to the appearance of China’s involvement, one journalist who visited the CCTV control room at the Metropolitan Police headquarters described a room ‘dominated by an enormous screen which … beamed text in Chinese that we could not read, headed by the phrase “China–Nepal” in English’. 

Tibetans living in Nepal have faced restrictions on their right to freedom of expression, both online and offline. Tibetans in Nepal are also prohibited from advocating for Tibetan independence or greater freedoms. Even reporting on the Dalai Lama in Nepal has at times been restricted. For example, in 2019, under pressure from China’s embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology ordered an investigation into three journalists with state media agency Rastriya Samachar Samiti who had written about the Dalai Lama. One of the members of the committee formed to investigate the journalists pointed directly to China’s influence, telling Radio Free Asia at the time that ‘our investigation will be guided by Nepal’s relationship with China, by the One-China policy, and by Nepal’s foreign policy’. 

China’s threat to withdraw financial support for failure to control Tibetans has raised concern about China’s coercion over Nepali legislation. In mid-2019, Pradeep Yadav, a member of parliament, was handed a six-month suspension after he attended a ‘Free Tibet’ event co-organised by the International Network of Parliamentarians on Tibet in Latvia. The suspension followed strong objections from the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu.

Later the same year, in October 2019, following a state visit from Xi Jinping, the two countries concluded a number of agreements. A statement released by Nepal’s Foreign Ministry outlining the agreements referred to continued implementation of BRI projects and other infrastructure projects, such as fiber optics, and promised to ‘further strengthen cooperation on information and communications for mutual benefit’. It also emphasised continued efforts between the two countries to strengthen cooperation on law enforcement in information exchange. 

In September 2023, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, in the same meeting with Xi Jinping noted above where he requested China’s ongoing development assistance, promised Nepal’s ‘firm and unshakeable’ adherence to the One China policy and position on Tibet. He praised Xi Jinping as a ‘visionary global leader and a good friend of all Nepalese people’. 

China’s ongoing economic support through BRI and related digital infrastructure development in Nepal remains predicated, in part, on Nepal’s ongoing embrace of China’s political narratives and willingness to engage in surveillance and persecution of Tibetans in Nepal.

Recommendations to the Government of Nepal

• Ensure the rights and fundamental freedoms of all Tibetans are protected in Nepal.
• Nepal deserves to graduate from Least Developed Country status, which in part will require greater connectivity and digital infrastructure, but it should seek development cooperation from partners who embrace transparency and a rights-based approach, which must not premise digital development on a promise of embracing anti-human rights policies.
• Make publicly available the contents of cooperation agreements and MOUs signed in relation to digital infrastructure or governance cooperation between Nepal and China, and consider establishing a national transparency database for easy access to all such agreements.
• Amend or repeal draft provisions such as the Social Media Bill, Information Technology Bill, and others that do not align with internet freedom principles, in part for expanding the censorship powers of the state in ways similar to those advocated by China under the Cyberspace Administration of China. Any social media regulation must comply with international human rights law, the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability, and others.
• Amend or repeal the National Cybersecurity Policy in line with international human rights law, and in particular do not proceed with plans for a government intranet and National Internet Gateway.