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The Digital Silk Road: “Tech-Diplomacy” as a Paradigm for Understanding Technological Adoption and Emerging Digital Regulations in MENA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2025

Andrew Mazen Dahdal Open the ORCID record for Andrew Mazen Dahdal [Opens in a new window]  and
Adel Abdel Ghafar
Andrew Mazen Dahdal*
Affiliation:
Qatar University, Qatar
Adel Abdel Ghafar
Affiliation:
Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Qatar
*
Corresponding author: Andrew Mazen Dahdal; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a Chinese infrastructure and investment project launched in 2013 that seeks to link China with over 70 countries through transport, communication, and trading networks. The BRI consists of building and construction projects including railways, ports, roads, and other vital trade infrastructure. Importantly, the BRI also includes the establishment of a new “Digital Silk Road” (DSR) enhancing digital connectivity using the latest 5G high bandwidth, low latency mobile and satellite technology. In 2019, several Western states (notably USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK) banned Chinese telecommunications technology companies, such as Huawei, from rolling out 5G networks in their respective jurisdictions. The purported basis for the bans were security concerns over the ability of the Chinese government to control and potentially intercept communications over the Huawei systems. In the MENA region, no such bans have been adopted and the DSR is proceeding to connect MENA economies to China at a rapid pace. This places MENA countries in a precarious position between strategic links with the US as the global hegemon with a strategic interest in the region, and the emerging Chinese global political and economic order. The regulation of digital communication technologies is one dimension where legal frameworks must be designed with care and discernment to balance competing geopolitical forces. This article seeks to answer the question of how best to understand the legal regulation of new technologies in the MENA region and argues that the conceptual lens of “Tech-diplomacy” helps to provide such an understanding. In addition to privacy-centric, security-centric, and growth-centric philosophical and jurisprudential approaches to understanding data regulation, the predicament of the MENA region is a case study in how geopolitics can also inform our understanding of tech regulation.

Keywords

ChinaMENABelt and RoadDigital Silk Roaddata governancetech-diplomacy
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , First View , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

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Footnotes

*

Associate Professor, College of Law, Qatar University. This Article was made possible by award AICC05-0619-230007 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation).

**

Fellow and Director of the Foreign Policy and Security program at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.

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