In The News

Digital BRI: Times of India

Nayan Chanda May 9, 2019
China’s Belt and Road Initiative supports a range of infrastructure projects connecting more than 60 nations. The digital component could be the most influential part of China’s new trade and transportation hubs, explains Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal Online, in his column for the Times of India. “While the US keeps issuing warnings about the espionage risks of using Chinese 5G...

South Korea Launches 5G Network: Japan Times

April 3, 2019
Nations are competing to launch 5G networks and anticipate a burst of spin-off innovations contributing to economic growth. South Korea is the first to launch a 5G network described as 20 times faster than the current 4G, or fourth-generation networks. Each generation enables new technologies and control of data “The superfast communications heralded by fifth-generation wireless technology will...

Social Media Blackout in Chad: Africannews

Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban March 30, 2019
A keypad, like the pen, can be mightier than the sword, and some governments impose social media blackouts. For the past year, Chad has prohibited the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, reports Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban for Africannews. The impoverished nation of about 15 million people has endured years of rebellion, civil war and extremists like Boko Haram. The...

Battle for Global Internet Grid: Wall Street Journal

Jeremy Page, Kate O’Keeffe and Rob Taylor March 14, 2019
Huawei, headquartered in China, manufacturers an array of telecommunications equipment and pursues contracts worldwide, including building and equipping the vast undersea cable networks that carry global internet data. “About 380 active submarine cables – bundles of fiber-optic lines that travel oceans on the seabed – carry about 95% of intercontinental voice and data traffic, making them...

Modern Diplomacy: Advanced Persistent Cyber Threats

Al Lewis January 31, 2019
Global online connectivity presents and exposes many vulnerabilities. Writing for Modern Diplomacy, Al Lewis explains that advanced persistent cyber threats share six characteristics with terrorism: “asymmetry, cost effectiveness, contributions of loose associations, will to succeed, impossibility to completely defend, and contagion.” However, those waging cyber-attacks, unlike terrorists, are...

New York Times: Three Internets and America’s May Not Be Best

October 16, 2018
As nations apply regulations that limit the internet, some protecting and others invading privacy, the information highway may fragment. “All signs point to a future with three internets,” notes an opinion essay written by the New York Times editorial board. “But all three spheres — Europe, America and China — are generating sets of rules, regulations and norms that are beginning to rub up...

China-US Focus: US Miscalculation on a Chinese Debt Crisis

Vasilis Trigkas and Qian Feng August 30, 2018
US leaders may misunderstand Chinese economic fundamentals by assuming that a trade war will trigger a debt crisis that threatens China’s government. Vasilis Trigkas and Qian Feng of Tsinghua University point to three China-specific economic characteristics that could prevent an economic crash. The Chinese Communist Party controls the nation’s information infrastructure which gives regulators...