Tecnologia e autonomia: a Rota da Seda Digital como estratégia do desenvolvimento tecnológico da República Popular da China

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the Digital Silk Road (DSR), a development project built upon the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) of China, as a central element of the economic and technological development of contemporary People’s Republic of China. In order to do so, a brief historical review of the emergence of ICTs was carried out based on the domination of the United States in relation to the international system, based on technological supremacy, from the 1970s on. Then, an exposition about the development of the thought about technology and autonomy in China was built, going through the republican period (1912-1949), in a quick way, and, in a more detailed way, through the maoist period (1949-1978) and the Reform and Opening Up (1978-present), with the chinese reinsertion in the globalized world market. In a next step, an analysis of the international relations of contemporary China was established from the viewpoint of technological autonomy, seeking the dialectic intricacies of China’s relations as an agent on the international structure, revealing the nexus between technological autonomy and national development and presenting the conceptions of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the RSD. Finally, the imbricated movement between Chinese domestic and external digitalization and its external projection through the RSD was worked on, demonstrating its role as a promoter of autonomy through integration. Priority was given to bibliographic sources from, first, the geographical regions most directly involved in the process of building the BRI and the RSD, and second, theoretical-historical productions from Brazil, instrumentalizing national thought to understand the interstate system. In addition, texts that make up the critical marxist productions in International Relations, technology and International Political Economy were widely used. It was concluded that the RSD is valid as an autonomous development and expansion project for China, but that its results are not guaranteed and depend on China’s capacities to exercise its agency over structural constraints, under direct threats from other agentes, and in relation to the equally national interests of present or potential partners. The research has offered an organizing framework for thinking about the RSD beyond techno-fetishist elucubrations, seeking to establish the challenges and concrete possibilities that the initiative offers for chinese development.