The Digital Silk Road

An expert on Chinas global infrastructure expansion provides an urgent look at the battle to connect and control tomorrows networks.

From the ocean floor to outer space, Chinas Digital Silk Road aims to wire the world and rewrite the global order. Taking readers on a journey inside Chinas surveillance state, rural America, and Africas megacities, Jonathan Hillman reveals what Chinas expanding digital footprint looks like on the ground and explores the economic and strategic consequences of a future in which all routers lead to Beijing.

If China becomes the worlds chief network operator, it could reap a commercial and strategic windfall, including many advantages currently enjoyed by the United States.

It could reshape global flows of data, finance, and communications to reflect its interests. It could possess an unrivaled understanding of market movements, the deliberations of foreign competitors, and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its networks.

However, Chinas digital dominance is not yet assured.

Beijing remains vulnerable in several key dimensions, the United States and its allies have an opportunity to offer better alternatives, and the rest of the world has a voice. But winning the battle for tomorrows networks will require the United States to innovate and take greater risks in emerging markets. Networks create large winners, and this is a contest America cannot afford to lose.