【英文】荷兰国际关系研究所报告：详解中国的数字丝绸之路（21页）

Undertaken by Chinese tech-giants such as Huawei and ZTE, Chinese companies  are now leaders in building digital infrastructure worldwide. This includes  telecommunications (5G) networks and submarine cables, smart cities, satellite systems  and cloud computing. In terms of the global market share of 5G telecommunications  equipment, as of 2018, Huawei is the world leader at 28 per cent, while ZTE ranks  fourth at 10 per cent (with Europe’s Nokia and Ericsson in between, at 16 and  14 per cent, respectively). Chinese companies also lead in the number of 5G patents,  wherein Huawei alone has 3,325 declared patents, compared to 2,038 for Nokia and  1,423 for Ericsson. Separately, in Southeast Asia, Chinese companies also dominate  the smartphone market, with 60 per cent of the market share in ASEAN-5 countries  (that is, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) in 2019. Smart cities are also an integral part of China’s DSR. In this new way of urbanisation,  digital technologies such as AI, 5G telecommunications networks and the IoT facilitate the further development of industries enabled by the digital revolution. 

Chinese  companies are leading forces of smart city development in many parts of the world,  including in Central Asia and Russia, Africa, the Middle East, and even in the EU.  The Chinese government and private companies act in sync, as the national and  local governments assist companies to survive and expand their (global) footprint,  with tax subsidies, preferential loans, grants and favourable input prices. Yet China’s aspirations reach even further, with space development becoming more  prominent on the DSR agenda. The Chinese government has created an alternative to  the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite  System (GLONASS) and the EU’s Galileo system. The BeiDou Navigation Satellite  System sets out to be fully independent in imaging, communications and geolocation  services, and the Chinese government is offering BeiDou’s services to other countries.