The Digital Silk Road: Connecting Africa with New Norms of Digital Development

W ith socioeconomic development as the aim of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an expected effect is a boost in science and technology across the participating regions. Collectively, the countries participating in BRI are home to 65% of the world’s population, and digital technology is playing an increasingly crucial role in diplomacy, trade, and geopolitics. BRI’s infrastructure-building campaign includes digital development through the Digital Silk Road (DSR), which aims to support BRI’s streamlining of trade and industrial overcapacity with greater digital integration.1 To date, 52 of 55 African Union members have signed a memorandum of understanding with China on BRI.2 Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has adopted the BRI and DSR as organizing concepts of its foreign policy. As such, the role of the internet and digital infrastructure must be critically examined, particularly with regard to China’s foreign policy intentions toward Africa. In line with the rise of Chinese internet companies on the global stage, there has also been an increased foreign policy push to build an “information silk road,” as China’s policymakers articulated in 2015.3 The DSR aims to facilitate the integration of networked technologies such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence further into BRI.4 Even though there is growing consensus on the importance of BRI, there has been little debate on the role of the internet in the progress and development of BRI, which in this context manifests as the DSR.