Prefiguring China’s Digital Silk Road to Europe: Connecting Switzerland
BP2-STS
- Kaufmann, Lena ORCID University of Fribourg
- 2021
Submitted to:
- Transformations: Downstream Effects of the BRI blog, Belt and Road in Global Perspective at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. - University of Toronto. - 2021
China in Europe
Chinese–Swiss entanglements
Digital Silk Road
Belt and Road Initiative
Politics of sight
Digital infrastructures
Fiber-optic networks
Internet cables
Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)
Telecommunication companies
English
Through the lens of "politics of sight", this chapter provides on-the-ground perspectives on a crucial yet commonly overlooked aspect of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): the Digital Silk Road (DSR). Drawing on ethnographic and archival research focused on digital infrastructures, specifically fiber-optic networks, I trace China's DSR to Europe through the example of Switzerland. To comprehend the effects of digitalization in Switzerland and globally requires considering Chinese involvements in digital infrastructures. I argue that although discursive references linking Switzerland to the DSR are recent and Western observers are only now beginning to "see" Chinese fiber-optic networks, what is currently framed as part of the DSR began long before the announcement of the BRI. Moreover, the Chinese-Swiss entanglements in digital infrastructures are not as unidirectional as is often assumed. Overall, the DSR is better characterized as a series of multinational investments rather than as a cohesive, top-down geopolitical strategy.
- Faculty
- Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines
- Department
- Département des sciences sociales
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Arts, Human and Social Science
- License
-
License undefined
- Open access status
- green
- Identifiers
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/334077
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