Preview

Outlines of global transformations: politics, economics, law

Advanced search

Formation of Digital Society and Geopolitical Competition

Abstract

The article discusses the growing interdependence between the geopolitical competition of great powers and the development of digital technologies. Throughout the 2010s, the contradictions of the leading states regarding the control and regulation of the Internet have noticeably intensified. In the absence of universal rules for information security, the Internet is evolving towards a kind of “gray zone” in which various actors can use the wide range of available tools to achieve their political or other goals without fear of being drawn into a full-scale conflict.

Nowadays, the geopolitical rivalry, primarily between the United States and China, covers a wide range of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. It is highly likely that during the 2020s, China and the United States will create two competing and increasingly less compatible global ecosystems for the development of the Internet of things, big data processing technologies, 5 G mobile communications, additive technologies, robotics, etc. The choice of one of the ecosystems will at the same time become a geopolitical choice, which, obviously, during the next decade all state actors in the system of international relations will have to make.

About the Author

D. V. Efremenko
Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences (INION) of the Russian Academy
Russian Federation

Dmitry V. Efremenko

DSc in Politics, Deputy Director

117997, Nakhimovskij Av., 51/21, Moscow, Russian Federation



References

1. Agamben G. (2011) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Moscow: “Evropa” (in Russian).

2. Allison G. (2017) Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Election (2017). National Intelligence Council, January 6, 2017. Available at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Assessing_Russian_Activities_and_Intentions_in_Recent_US_Elections, accessed 21.05.2020.

3. Barr W.P. (2020) Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers the Keynote Address at the Department of Justice’s China Initiative Conference. The United States Department of Justice, February 6, 2020. Available at: https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-keynote-address-department-justices-china,accessed 21.05.2020.

4. Bremmer I. (2019) The End of the American Order: Ian Bremmer speech at 2019 GZERO Summit. Eurasia Group, November 18, 2019. Available at: https://www.eurasiagroup.net/live-post/end-of-american-order-ian-bremmer-2019-gzero-summit-speech, accessed21.05.2020.

5. Chan E. (2018) ‘Made in China 2025’: Is Beijing’s Plan for Hi-Tech Dominance as Big a Threat as the West Thinks It Is? South China Morning Post, September 10, 2018. Available at: https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/2163601/made-china-2025-beijingsplan-hi-tech-dominance-big-threat, accessed 21.05.2020.

6. Cheney C. (2019) China’s Digital Silk Road: Strategic Technological Competition and Exporting Political Illiberalism. Council on Foreign Relations, September 26, 2019. Available at: https://www.cfr.org/blog/chinas-digital-silk-road-strategictechnological-competition-and-exporting-political, accessed 21.05.2020.

7. Diesen G. (2018) China’s Geoeconomics and the “New Cold War”. Russia in Global Affairs, December 26, 2018. Available at: https://globalaffairs.ru/valday/Geoekonomika-Kitaya-i-novaya-kholodnaya-voina-19890, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

8. Efremenko D.V. (2014) Crossing Red Lines. Russia in Global Affairs, vol. 12, no 3, pp. 8–23. Available at: https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/za-flazhki/, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

9. Efremenko D.V., Yanitsky O.N., Ermolaeva P.O. (2019) On Sociobiotechnical Systems. Problems of Philosophy, no 5, pp. 138–147 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31857/S004287440005064-5

10. Goncharenko R. (2018) A Root Hit, or Can the United States Disconnect Russia from the Internet. Deutsche Welle, January 16, 2018. Available at: https://www.dw.com/ru/удар-под-корень-или-могут-ли-сша-отключить-россию-от-интернета/a-42154490, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

11. Grigoryev L.M., Pavlyushina V.A., Muzychenko E.E. (2020) The Fall into 2020 Recession... Voprosy Ekonomiki, no 5, pp. 5–24 (in Russian). DOI: 10.32609/0042-8736-2020-5-5-24

12. Hemmings J., Cha P. (2020) The Hidden Dangers of China’s Digital Silk Road. The National Interest, March 11, 2020. Available at: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/hidden-dangers-chinas-digitalsilk-road-131887, accessed 21.05.2020.

13. Hicks K. et al. (2019) By Other Means. Part I: Campaigning in the Gray Zone. A Report on the CSIS International Security Program, New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

14. Karaganov S.A. (2019) Where to Go and With Whom to Go. Russia’s Foreign Policy on the Threshold of New Decade. Rossijskaya gazeta, December 26, 2019. Available at: https://rg.ru/2019/12/26/sergej-karaganov-neobhodim-kurs-na-preodolenieostatochnogo-zapadnocentrizma.html, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

15. Liang F., Das V., Kostyuk N. (2018) Constructing a Data-driven Society: China’s Social Credit System as a State Surveillance Infrastructure. Policy & Internet, vol. 10, no 4, pp. 415–453. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326817957_Constructing_a_Data-Driven_Society_China’s_Social_Credit_ System_as_a_State_Surveillance_Infrastructure, accessed 21.05.2020.

16. Lukin A.V. (2019) Discussion on the Development of China and Prospects for Its Foreign Policy. POLIS, Political Studies, no 1, pp. 71–89 (in Russian). DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2019.01.06

17. McDonell L. (2020) Disinformation Virus. What Can You Believe in Social Networks? Valdai International Discussion Club, April 8, 2020. Available at: https://ru.valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/virus-dezinformatsii/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=165&utm_medium=email, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

18. Markov A. (2020) Information Security under Conditions of Pandemics COVID19. Russian International Affairs Council, April 9, 2020. Available at: https://russiancouncil.ru/analytics-andcomments/analytics/informatsionnayabezopasnost-v-usloviyakh-pandemii-covid-19/, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

19. MTS and Huawei Will Develop 5G in Russia (2019). RBC, June 6, 2019. Available at: https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/05/06/2019/5cf7d7ab9a79475b30e51df3, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

20. Mueller R.S. (2019) Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, vol. 1–2, Washington D.C.

21. National Cyber Strategy of the United States of America (2018). The White House, September 2018. Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/National-Cyber-Strategy.pdf, accessed 21.05.2020.

22. Perlow J. (2020) Coronavirus Misinformation Spreading Fast: Fake News on COVID-19 Shared Far More Than CDC, WHO Reports. ZDNet, March 3, 2020. Available at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/coronavirus-misinformation-is-increasing-newsguard-finds/, accessed 21.05.2020.

23. Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly (2020). President of Russia, January 15, 2020. Available at: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62582, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

24. Putin: “Leader in Artificial Intelligence Will Rule the World” (2019). TASS, May 30, 2019. Available at: https://tass.ru/ekonomika/6489864, accessed 21.05.2020 (in Russian).

25. Russia Plants Its Flag in the Digital Realm (2019). Stratfor, March 19, 2019. Available at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/russia-plants-its-flag-digitalrealm-cybersecurity-internet, accessed 18.04.2020.

26. Scott B., Heumann S., Lorenz Ph. (2018) Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Policy. Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, January 2018. Available at: https://www.stiftung-nv.de/sites/default/files/ai_foreign_policy.pdf, accessed 21.05.2020.

27. Snowden E. (2019) Permanent Record, New York: Metropolitan Books.

28. Timofeev O.A. (2019) The Sino-US Trade Conflict 2019 and Its Prospects: Between Pessimism and Uncertainty. China in World and Regional Politics: History and Modernity. Issue XXIV, Moscow: Institute of Far East of Russian Academy of Sciences, pp. 173–187 (in Russian).

29. Van Alstyne M., Brinjolfsson E. (1997) Electronic Communities: Global Village or Cyberbalkans? MIT Sloan School. Available at: http://web.mit.edu/marshall/www/papers/CyberBalkans.pdf, accessed 21.05.2020.

30. Wroughton L., Brunnstrom D. (2018) Wary of China’s Rise, Pompeo Announces U.S. Initiatives in Emerging Asia. Reuters, July 30, 2018. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade/wary-ofchinas-rise-pompeo-announces-us-initiatives-in-emerging-asia-idUSKBN1KK0V5, accessed 21.05.2020.


Review

For citations:


Efremenko D.V. Formation of Digital Society and Geopolitical Competition. Outlines of global transformations: politics, economics, law. 2020;13(2):25-43. (In Russ.)

Views: 1174


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.


ISSN 2542-0240 (Print)
ISSN 2587-9324 (Online)