The Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), based in Washington DC, has had a more alarmist view of China in recent decade .
It comes as no surprise then that this is another book on the extent to which China can steal the ‘future’ from under the nose of the United States (US), by extension, the European Union (EU), Japan and perhaps South Korea and Taiwan too.
Within this context, Jonathan Hillman is not a difficult author let alone a strategic thinker to understand. Almost everything is laid down in the binary code of black and white.
What makes this book interesting, however, is the elaboration of the Beidou satellite system ably created by China, that has rivalled the Global Positioning System (GPS) of the United States, of which the features of many have been installed into the Apple and Amdroid telecommunication systems.
Jonathan Hillman, based in CSIS, to focus on Digital issues, ranging from bandwidth to connectivity, might as well has conceded that this was a book written withi the goal of polishing his CV.
This is the case since he himself has admitted in the book that even American military generals have admitted, in which case, only one was cited, that US military is not aversed to keeping the Beidou satellite system alive and well as and well there is a risk of the whole GPS system being down.
When the GPS is not working, at least Beidou System can be the next secure and alternative option. In this vein, the United States (US) and China are not necessarily at odds on every and single issue—-only both sides have not found the right convergence on their Modus Vivendi as yet.
Thus, while Jonathan Hillman has published a book verging on some post modern form of scare mongering atypical of how an open society can misperceive a seemingly more authoritarian one, of which the latter is China in the estimate of Jonathan Hillman, there is a long way to go before the debate on who owns and dominate the future can be settled.
Granted that hullabaloo of the “Internet of Things” (IoT) where the future—-if not the present—-is already proliferating with humanity’s growing dependence even addiction to the Internet, it is easy to assume that the G 7 and EU, invariably its supporters and sympathizers, must control everything from the most advanced 0.3 to 0.7 Nanometer semi conductor chips to the number of satellites with which China must put in place.
Reading the “Digital Silk Road,” which is latched on to the concept of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), of which 30 percent of the BRI projects launched between 2014 and 2024 appeared to be on distress, with another 60 percent showing signs of not being able to handle the recovery process of the Pandemic, that officially ended in the first half of 2022, there is no explanation on why good old nationalism will not permit either the US nor China to control the future of various states at all.
That is not unless these nation states plan to free ride on their technological break through to get by. Imposed on a larger canvas, Jonathan Hillman seems to have forgot that “digitalization” is something that nation states and elites themselves would like to own—–without being deferrential to the US and China.
Therefore, “The Digital Silk Road” is not so much a forked one, where nation states must choose either to go with the United States or China, rather they must not know how to work with both to separate the sensitivity of the issues and sectors.
That too is based on how strong and relentless would the US be pushing its Project Clean Network launched by the ex President Donald Trump in 2020