YouBilateral digital authoritarianism lurks beneath a bifurcated geopolitical system in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
Under unprecedented sanctions from the West, Russia will only fall further into the hands of China, with implications for a new world order whose outlines are already visible. It is an illusion to gauge the depth of Sino-Russian alliances in redirected energy flows, ambitious agreements to enhance infrastructural capabilities, or even Beijing’s eagerness to circumvent secondary sanctions to supply arms to Moscow. The severity of Beijing’s dominance over Moscow can be gauged from how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has implemented and strengthened its access to Moscow’s information control apparatus. Today, that system is the backbone of the Kremlin’s statecraft.
And this should worry India. This casts doubt on how far and for how long sensitive communications and transactions with Russia can remain unaffected by Chinese spying, whatever Moscow may wish.
the opposite model of hegemony
,end of historyprompted the United States to have its ‘unipolar’ moment. In an effort to paint the world with a liberal democratic brush, the US found itself searching for global hegemony through endless wars, bloodshed, and failed attempts to establish democracy. While its main rival China has so far stayed away from military defeat.
Among other capabilities, Beijing has quietly devised and implemented the most sophisticated system of surveillance, digital authoritarianism, and espionage not only on its own people but against them. rest of the world Too. The unethical use of technology is an integral part of the CCP’s economic statecraft, especially through networks such as digital silk road (DSR). Platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and TikTok and Chinese tech giants including Beidou and Huawei create and store databases on which China’s digital totalitarianism thrives.
This set of strategies and techniques is vital to China’s “no-limits” friendship with Russia.
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The panopticonic gaze of the Kremlin
The Kremlin’s first concerted action on information shutdown and surveillance began with a presidential decree Months following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. In the same year, Roskomnadzor, an inconspicuous Russian agency, the country’s internet and media regulator, was formed. doubling as one surveillance machineThis ‘internet blocker’ agency has emerged as a star performer in the ongoing Ukraine war. It has blocked more than 1.2 million URLs since the war with Ukraine began in February 2022 and has been instrumental in censoring Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Famous exodus About several hundred Russian journalists have also been killed because of the actions taken by Roskomnadzor.
In a CCP-style strategy of 24/7 surveillance on its citizens’ Internet communications and behavior, the agency has also Allegedly Russia is using a covert surveillance system to identify activities related to the ‘destabilization’ of the state and society. The Federal Security Service’s Internet surveillance system, SORM-3, will expand the investigation by threatening telecom users with revoking their licenses if they fail to install the software on their devices. the new York Times’ reports Leaked Roskomnadzor documents reveal that Russia’s Internet censors have played a key role in shaping a favorable domestic information environment as the Ukraine war gets underway.
The emergence of Roskomnadzor as the most powerful tool for information blackout and mass surveillance in 2022 has its roots in a series restrictive lawsintroduced since 2012, which has created an enabling legal framework around censorship.
For more than a decade, President Vladimir Putin has been building a Russian version of the Great Firewall of China Involved in its elements red webThe country’s internet filtering and control system.
As Russia stood down from the G7 for its actions in Crimea 2014Xi Jinping exploited the rift between the West and Moscow, offering the latter the most sensitive of state-domain information control and surveillance tools. The Kremlin’s aim of regaining influence in its post-USSR neighborhood came to the fore with Moscow controlling information and conducting massive surveys on its subjects in line with the official narrative of Russian state art. Russia’s discovery has sent governance into the experienced hands of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has some of the most advanced digital authoritarianism material in the world. In 2015, Russia and China signed a Comprehensive Cyber Security Treaty Under which both countries promised not to hack each other and kept their formidable cyber power safe for ‘presumed’ adversaries.
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China-Russia ‘darkness’ closeness
In the summer of 2016, Russian conservative legislator Irina Yarovaya drafted a ‘reform’ package as part of wider anti-terror legislation. set of two widely criticized The federal law, called the Yarovaya law, forced mobile and internet companies to log people’s text messages, phone conversations and chats for six months and hand over the data to security services when ordered by the courts.
A few months later, the next phase of an unprecedented China-Russia cyber cooperation began.
The huge amount of data generated by Yarovaya’s brainchild requires storage and processing capabilities, which Russia could not boast of in 2016. After all, it was right after the first wave of technical sanctions by the West. Crimean invasion.
With a view to enhancing regime stability and legitimacy, the Yarovaya Laws paved the way for Russia’s cooperation with Chinese Great Firewall security officials implement Its data retention and filtering infrastructure.
These laws created the Internet Blacklist Registry, which is managed by Roskomnadzor, and to block access to any objectionable site to mandatory service providers. From 2012 to 2021, Google received 2,34,000 Requests for the removal of about three million items from Russia alone. it’s probably safe to extrapolate why Google was banned Ukraine in the first months of the war.
likewise 2013 Federal Law 389-FZIn an uncanny resemblance to China’s multi-pronged crackdown diktat, Russia’s prosecutor general has been given the power to remove sites that encourage large-scale riots, extremist activities, or participation in unsanctioned public events. Are. Apple and Google were under the same law forced to remove A strategic polling app used by followers of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to express their dissatisfaction with the regime.
A few years later, the 2019 “Sovereign Internet Law” Gave Government officials have the power to pull the plug on the internet if need be.
By the end of 2021, Russian courts had already started aimed at Tech giants such as Google’s parent company Alphabet were fined $98 million and Meta $27 million for repeatedly failing to remove illegal content. As Facebook and Twitter prepare to leave Russia, two subsidiaries of Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom — Gazprom-Media and SOGAZ (the insurance company) — acquired VKontakte, the country’s largest social media network, enabling direct state control over other networks.
In line with the Chinese model, the sole purpose of Russian firewalling is to quell dissent and strengthen the stability and legitimacy of the regime. But easy access to sensitive state information by actors like Huawei opens a Pandora’s box of potential security breaches.
Huawei—Abandoned by the West, Resurrected by the Kremlin
Russia’s deteriorating relations with the West after 2014 created new opportunities for Huawei. In retaliation for Western sanctions, Putin signed a series of laws aimed at technically isolating Russia from the West. as Donald Trump Administration sanctions imposed On Huawei in 2019, the technology corporation shifted its investments to Russia. It was launched after the settlement Put signature on between Xi and Putin
under huawei Help, Russia has begun deploying mandatory black boxes. These systems intercept and monitor connections and collect data as needed; They are also used by government agencies to block websites on Internet registry blacklists.
Chinese tech giant has been instrument To help Russia build its digital Iron Curtain, a cornerstone of the Kremlin’s strategy make it count Its story today.
A recent French report China’s Influence Operations Huawei’s close ties to the CCP and the latter’s use of state-owned and private companies to collect vast amounts of data globally were revealed. It paints a gruesome picture.
Truth is the first victim of any war. While the truth remains elusive and intertwined with the goals of the respective war, the development and deployment of state machinery in censoring information that disputes the state narrative is tangible. While no government can be completely absolved of not spying on citizens’ information and communications, autocratic regimes do so with absolute authority and justification to a degree that is incomparable with their democratic counterparts.
India has already seen Agitation In China-backed cyber attacks. Huawei and ZTE are under scrutiny in India for allegedly setting up a ‘backdoor’ vulnerability to spy for the Chinese government. Does India have standalone capabilities, lest Huawei spying resumes through Russian channels? Therein, perhaps, lies another lesson for New Delhi in consolidating important information.
The author is Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Centre, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Hamara Lai)