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China Rises as World's Data Superpower as Internet Fractures (nikkei.com) 113

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Back in 2001, the U.S. was the dominant country when it came to cross-border data flows. It was the early days of the internet boom, and America was where tech companies and tech-savvy consumers were. But the global data order is changing rapidly. From a report: China now accounts for 23% of cross-border data flows, nearly twice the share of the U.S., which ranks a distant second with 12%. And the Chinese lead could turn into a dominant advantage as the formerly world-spanning internet shatters into the "splinternet": a balkanized mosaic of information networks marked off by national borders. A Nikkei survey of information on cross-border data flows from the International Telecommunication Union and U.S. research firm TeleGeography showed that cross-border data flows of China, including Hong Kong, in 2019 far outstripped any of the other 10 countries and regions examined, including the U.S. (Click here for a graphic-rich version of this article.)

The source of Beijing's power lies in its connections with the rest of Asia. While the U.S. accounted for 45% of data flows in and out of China in 2001, that figure dropped to just 25% last year. Asian countries now make up more than half the total, particularly Vietnam at 17% and Singapore at 15%. Beijing has used its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative to encourage private-sector tech companies like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings to expand abroad. Alibaba spinoff Ant Group's Alipay mobile payment platform is available in more than 55 countries and used by 1.3 billion people. China surged past the U.S. in 2014, and its influence outside its borders has only grown in the ensuing years. What does that mean? As China becomes a global data superpower, it will control huge quantities of a resource that will be invaluable to its future economic competitiveness. Data from foreign sources can provide an edge in developing artificial intelligence and information technologies.
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China Rises as World's Data Superpower as Internet Fractures More

China Rises as World's Data Superpower as Internet Fractures

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  • Byzantine... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:16PM (#60770716)
    This is beginning to remind me of the Byzantine empire. The Byzantines were so busy fighting each other to deal with the nuisance of things like competing empires that posed a massive threat. All of the major catastrophes in the history of Byzantium can be traced to their incessant infighting. The US is the Byzantium of our time and unless the US wises up and stops obsessing about wedge issues it will continually fall behind in things like this, go the way of Byzantium, and China will be the USA's Rashidun Caliphate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They aren't wedge issues for the people affected, that's the problem. They can't be ignored, one side has to give in.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        Then perhaps we should split. Lincoln made a mistake: should have let the South go, and use sanctions to free the slaves.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by malkavian ( 9512 )

        So the question becomes, would you prefer to have this issue, and be in a functioning, well provisioned state, or would you prefer to have exactly the same issue when everyone is fighting for themselves and using the power of large mobs to rule by (which can happen in failing states, when demand for jobs/resources etc. far outstrips the ability to provide).
        Concentrating on the things that don't determine success or failure of a system over the medium to long term more than things that do is a recipe to have

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The US is falling behind because MBAs have gutted the US and sent its manufacturing and now engineering prowess overseas, all for short term profit for the ownership class. Nothing to do with social issues, all of which are becoming worse because the US is becoming poorer, not the other way around.

      Factional fighting and taking sides is a feature of a democracy, not a failure. The failure is when the sides stop talking and becoming unwilling to accept compromise or become ungovernable regardless of who is in

      • Don't forget about consumers who are unwilling to spend a nickle more to support their local communities.

  • The problem is no other country seems to have a real plan around the Internet. So China is the adult in the room, who has a plan, and implementation strategy and an end goal.
    So others are going to look to China for Guidance.
    We may tout how Chinese Government may be evil and their human rights issues, and blocking free speech. However they are the few adults in the room giving any sort of direction.

    • Yes, yes, and the 'parent' who is sexually abusing their child can be a perfect parent when they're not committing acts of incest, too, but it doesn't make up for it now does it?

      • No it doesn't but that isn't the point.

        Chances are the child still looks up to their parents, as well as the other children, who see these "perfect" parents. So they will still follow and respect the adult in the room, regardless on how bad they really are.

         

    • Re:Follow the Adult in the Room even if they Evil. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:56PM (#60770832)

      Having centralized control of something that is done freely in other places does not imply being more "adult."

      It is only "adult" if you view the People as children who need to be guided and controlled.

      That being a control freak involves planning does not imply that people who chose not to have those controls lacked planning. They might have even planned not to have those exact controls.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        It is only "adult" if you view the People as children who need to be guided and controlled.

        That's been the guiding philosophy of Chinese leadership for over 5000 years. That's why unlike the West the civilian population was always considered hands-off during their many internal wars, civilians who stayed out of the way were generally left alone and even looting by soldiers was discouraged. Is it appropriate everywhere/always? Of course not, but it's worked for them for a very long time.

        • What the fuck are you talking about? Mao killed 40 TO 80 MILLION CIVILIANS. Fuck, you are ignorant. You "admire" China but have never even been there. Seriously, you guys need to shut the fuck up. So ignorant.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            So now the number you're pulling out of your nether regions is 40-80 million? A few weeks ago is was 30-60. The actual number is under 10 million, many of them Chiang's mercenaries, which as a percentage of the population is less than what the US has done to the Iraqis or Afghans (so far). Yeah, history isn't your strong point, you've made that abundantly obvious.

            • Oh shit. He only killed 10 million? My mistake. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK? Even if it was 10 FUCKING MILLION PEOPLE THAT IS NOT GOOD. Jesus, take your wife and move to Peru now. You are an ignorant miserable asshole.

        • That's been the guiding philosophy of Chinese leadership for over 5000 years.

          It's a load of horseshit the Han wrote over the past few hundred years, is what it is.

          Half the shit they take credit for and call "Chinese" was the Mongolians, and a quarter was the Manchurians. And an eight the part of Korea they took. (North Korea is the middle of traditional three Korea states)

          Imagine if the Germans won the war, and renamed all of European history as German History. That's "Chinese" History, as told by the Han.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            I've been perusing several of the Chinese classics recently, including 'Romance Of The Three Kingdoms' and was struck by the deference given to the peasantry. It was ingrained into the culture enough that it appeared as an assumption that peasants were to be left alone if they were not actively assisting the enemy. Re-reading Sun Tzu a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the same assumption is there in 'The Art of War' 700 years earlier. The contrast to European war making, where the opportunity for rape

            • Oh what a load of horse shit.

              Because they wrote self-serving PR bullshit from an early epoch, that doesn't imply in any way that the historical record suggests they were pillaging and raping any less than others when they invaded and plundered a region.

              When you read Homer, where people went, when, is generally accurate. However, any moral virtues presented should be taken with a grain of salt. Same.

        • Ah, if only the wise council of Confucius were always heeded.
      • Indeed a large part of the population is on the level of children and limit their view at worst to "me myself and I" at best their view of the world to their street neighbor/family.

        • Your implied theory that the average adult human does not limit their views to "my myself and I" (at best) is absurd.

          Go and spend your life trying to prove it, and come back after your write a book or something, because as it is now the thing you said is just too stupid to defend.

    • Well that's one opinion. In the US, we cherish freedom and pay a very high price for it. It might look like anarchy, but it beats the alternative IMHO.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by malkavian ( 9512 )

        Some freedom is good. Absolute freedom is not (and tends to be expensive for everyone else in the vicinity).
        Having a stable but flexible environment is a tradeoff of freedoms balanced against constraints. That's the price to pay for the freedoms that are truly worth having.

    • Asia is leading the way through the 21st century

      America is sitting in the corner rocking back and forth, with a split personality, switching back and forth between being worried about somebody calling it a bad name and trying to regress to a warped vision of the 1950s.

      Notice that Asian schools crush all American schools? That's because they are not hung up on feelings, being micro politically correct, or on the flip side, religious indoctornation.

      Anerica had it's moment of glory, but now it's someone else's

  • Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian.bixby@gmail . c om> on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:20PM (#60770732)

    Unfortunately this was predictable by the mid-1990s, that the economy with a long-term economic view would eventually overcome those with short-term outlooks based on quarterly executive bonuses and election cycles. This is also why Chinese investment in basic research far outstrips either the US or EU.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Do you have evidence their basic research paid off? China has roughly 4 times US's population, so it makes sense they'd have more internet traffic eventually.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by xoweko8825 ( 7492762 )
      Ah, cusco the Marxist with another pro-China post. How original. Guess what? The only reason the data flow changed is because the routing improved due to new fiber lays and they don't need to route through the US (a good thing).

      You guys who talk up China need to move the fuck over there. They will LOVE you over there. You might last five minutes.

      • Re:Predictable (Score:5, Insightful)

        by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@@@gmail...com> on Friday November 27, 2020 @03:15PM (#60770876) Journal

        Exactly! It's surreal seeing someone position using the internet as it's intended, as a distributed network rather than centralized, as if it's an attack on the US. That has nothing to do with whether the Chinese government is good or bad, it has to do with it being more efficient to route traffic between countries in Asia directly instead of both routing through the US so the traffic goes trans-pacific twice.

        • The narrative now is "China is good" and "the US is bad". This is why Slashdot needs to be taken down. It has been twisted into something it wasn't meant to be in order to push a pro-China narrative.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            Are you claiming now to have asked Rob Malda what /. was originally supposed to be? As a troll you're laughably inept.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by malkavian ( 9512 )

            Why do you think this is the narrative? It's more a case of China doing something practical (an entirely in line with its population demographics), and someone believes or at least is pushing an agenda that it's somehow bad for America, and something people should be watching out for.

            It's simply doing business.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by laird ( 2705 )

            The story is pushing the opposite narrative - that China routing Internet traffic is bad, and the US being the hub of the internet is good.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:21PM (#60770736)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • It's the same in Europe and Latin America... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@@@gmail...com> on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:23PM (#60770742) Journal

    China has a lot of transit with the rest of Asia, which makes sense - Asia has great bandwidth generally, and it was wildly inefficient for the asian countries to route all their transit to the US and back to communicate with each other the way they used to decades ago. I'm not a fan of Chinese telecom generally (the firewall, and paranoid control over even trivial tasks like issuing DNS, are horrific) but simply routing traffic between China and its neighbors instead of both routing to the US isn't too suspicious - it's a natural development as the internet is designed as a distributed network, not "hub and spokes". You could write exactly the same article about Europe or Latin America, for example, which also used to route everything through the US and now route traffic directly and regionally.

  • I think perhaps in the end we're going to end up with 'the Asian Internet' and 'the Western Internet'. There's too much money involved, and by the way does anyone really think that all Western countries and Western citizens are just going to put up with Chinese government overreach? So far as I can see even Chinese citizens don't really accept the level of censorship their own excuse for a government imposes, they tolerate it, because like every other human being on the planet, they'd be happier not being g

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by laird ( 2705 )

      There are certainly a few autocratic countries trying to impose national controls over the internet. Luckily the design of the network and its protocols are resilient and distributed, not centralized, so it's always possible to route around anyone trying to damage the network. Admittedly, if the attacker is powerful, like the Chinese government, they might be relatively effective, but only within their own borders where they can impose physical controls, and even then they can't be 100% effective.

    • That's what happens when foreign (to China) Internet companies refuse to follow Chinese laws...how else to remove their Internet based products from the market than with a firewall of some kind?

    • > I'd also like to point out, being old enough to remember, that our civilzation ran just fine before there was such a thing as 'The Internet', and if necessary we could go back to those times.

      I'd like to point out that decades ago I was just fine riding a kid bike, and I could be again! Because time flows in any direction or I can still fit that 3 year old toy.

  • Data from foreign sources can provide an edge in developing artificial intelligence and information technologies.

    Better spam?

  • It's all the IoT crap phoning home, isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Arnonyrnous Covvard ( 7286638 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @03:09PM (#60770866)
    Politicians think the network controls the flow of information. Who talks to who is decided by the devices.

  • Sounds like... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wertigon ( 1204486 ) on Friday November 27, 2020 @03:25PM (#60770898)

    StarLink will give a huge middle finger to the Chinese in a few years. ðY

  • Sounds good to me.

  • China has an advantage in monitoring people over the internet and that might be useful for enforcing state control and advertising. But it does not make you find a better battery with AI based rapid prototyping. The kind of advantages China could get are restricted. Most AI tasks depend on other kinds of data, the kind that is just as accessible in any country, and mostly depends on R&D budgets.
  • Who cares if the country with the largest population also moves the most data? When you talk about China or Chinese companies, they are effectively the same thing - the state has a very hands-on role. When you talk about America and American companies though, they are not the same, indeed they may be paying minimal tax in the country and employing few locals!

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