… With its growing assertiveness in the international arena, China uses new technologies to achieve its foreign policy goals and project an image of responsible global power … spending billions on influence operations across the world ... fits in with China’s larger aim of expanding its soft power alongside its growing economic and military power … reach of Beijing’s overseas media is impressive and should not be underestimated. But the results are mixed ...

China feels that U.S. is its main adversary ... China is trying to match U.S. technological capabilities with its own strength in AI as a leap frog technology and a new concept of war ... But there will be lot of problems in implementing this concept of Intelligentization Warfare to reality. However, President Xi Jinping has thrown the gauntlet, and it is up to the U.S. the other adversaries and the rest of the world to follow this concept keenly.

China’s journey from being an agrarian economy to one of the largest economies with a strong military and cyber capabilities is commendable. However, its military and cyber capabilities are built upon relentless efforts to steal critical military and technical information of other countries, mainly the United States (US). Leading Chinese companies, including one of the telecom giants—Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (hereafter Huawei), are taking advantage of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects to access the competitive neighbourhood nations.

Several reports—news media and research, has highlighted the Chinese government’s engagement in data collection at a massive scale across multiple domains, for various purposes—including enhancing State security/surveillance. For a better and in-depth understanding of the China’s tech-enhanced data collection—domestically and internationally; on 16 October 2020, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) organised a virtual discussion with Professor Christopher Balding—an Associate Professor at the Fulbright University Vietnam.