A deluge of reports hit inboxes this week cataloging the risks China’s authoritarianism poses to Western democracies. The problem, they say, is that China may already be too big and too advanced in its technology to contain — at least for any one country alone.
Reports from the Halifax International Security Forum, the State Department and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Republican majority all agree that China’s goals and methods have changed quickly and that the U.S., EU and other democracies will fail to outmaneuver China by operating alone.
Samantha Hoffman, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre said liberal democracies must coordinate if they want to address China’s “tech-enhanced authoritarianism.” That means avoiding a narrow public debate on spying, she said, and focusing instead on fundamental research (to avoid relying on tech developed in China) and more internationally agreed standards (so that China does not set the standards themselves),
If the global community doesn’t come together, China will assume economic dominance of Artificial Intelligence applications, be in a position to spy on much of the world, and leverage international organizations to “make the world as a whole safe for authoritarianism,” according to the Halifax Report.