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With Oracle, Walmart and U.S. venture capitalists now holding the majority of TikTok Global’s shareholding, China’s closed digital world gets a breather, and the possibility of a truly open global Internet, gets a blow. China has won this round.
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The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated geopolitical changes. Countries around the world are becoming increasingly concerned about the nature of China’s global advances. China, at the urging of President Xi Jinping, is pursuing technological goals and investment programs to build a China-centric global model, not to mention its militarization of the South China Sea and its clampdown on Hong Kong.
Taiwan’s stellar response in containing the spread of the virus has been appreciated globally. Taipei is now in the spotlight, as it seeks global political equality and prepares its economy to become self-sufficient in everything from artificial intelligence to defence technology. Its changing global positioning has awakened its bilateral relationships, and India-Taiwan is one of them, with significant potential. In this episode of the Gateway House Weekly Webcast, Sameer Patil, Fellow, International Security Studies Programme, Gateway House is in conversation with Dr. I-Chung Lai, President, Prospect Foundation and Prof. M.D. Nalapat, Editorial Director, The Sunday Guardian and Vice-Chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group to discuss Taiwan’s emerging global role.
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The recent use of geospatial analyses by Indian social and mainstream media for near real-time defence and military intelligence in Ladakh has been made possible because of the lower cost of earth-observation satellite construction, and thereby, easy access to satellite imagery on the internet. While independent analysis is useful, the same intelligence can be also used against the interests of a sovereign nation by an adversary, especially border imagery. India must find innovative methods to reduce this vulnerability of commercial satellite imagery.
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After the strategic digital pushback against Chinese investments and apps, India should turn its attention to the biggest Chinese domination tool – 5G. This is the mother lode that enables the efficient gathering of data, which when mined, results in product enhancement and pricing benefits to products listed in China 2025 and helps China set global standards. There is an urgency for alternate suppliers of 5G equipment and other technologies to avoid relying on China.
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With more than 130 and 119 million users respectively, Chinese apps such as UC Browser and TikTok are not merely internet products, but serious content aggregators in India. But the final control of data collected by these apps resides in China, and this creates a grave risk to national security.
Courtesy: Gateway House
In this episode we discussed Cybersecurity and Data Threats from China with Brijesh Singh, Inspector General of Police and Former Head, Maharashtra Cyber. Hosted by Sameer Patil, Fellow, International Security Studies Programme, Gateway House.
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The recently announced New and Emerging Strategic Technologies (NEST) Division of India’s Ministry of External Affairs is timely. It can become vital for India’s national technosecurity in the imminent Fourth Industrial Age if a new Cabinet Committee on Futuristic Science and Technologies is established along with it
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In India, China’s tech giant companies and venture capital funds have become the primary vehicle for investments in the country – largely in tech start-ups. This is different from other emerging markets where Chinese investments are mostly in physical infrastructure. Chinese FDI into India is small at $6.2 billion, but its impact is already outsized, given the increasing penetration of tech in India
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Chinese investments in India’s soft power sectors, such as smartphones and apps, glitter like a diamond necklace around India. Here is anecdotal evidence of their reach and capacity to harvest more data than necessary, with recommendations for their regulation
