Digital Silk Road; Is it an Anti-Globalization Backlash? Is it Chinese-Style Globalization?

Abstract

Digital activities of the Belt and Road initiative called the "digital Silk Road" in the post-COVID-19 outbreak era and initially introduced in 2015 as the "information Silk Road," have come under fire. Finding out whether China's technical improvement, which has become evident in many areas thanks to the Digital Belt and Road initiative project, is a backlash against globalization or a new wave of it done in a Chinese form is the main challenge of this study. Data centers—the backbone of the Belt and Road Initiative—undersea fiber optic cables, 5-G cellular data networks, and Turkish investments in these sectors have all been essential in this regard. This method explores China's technological development from the four modernization periods to the present through a chronological descriptive description. This study should be viewed as significantly contributing to the literature because it provides a system-level examination of the digital Belt and Road endeavor.