Digital Neocolonialism: The Chinese Surveillance State in Africa

Abstract

China has developed into a twenty-first-century surveillance state with unprecedented abilities to censor speech and infringe upon basic human rights. The effects of China's digital authoritarianism reach well beyond its national borders. The Chinese government has begun exporting its high-tech surveillance blueprint, and the censorship and surveillance technologies on which it is based, to authoritarian-leaning governments in Africa. This blueprint is suffused with the potential for developing surveillance societies in China's image, particularly in African countries with poor human rights records, where democratic institutions are either weak or still in their infancy. This may yield even greater repression, rather than liberalisation, in Africa. The consequences for human rights on the African continent are likely to be dire.