The Washington Post: China and Russia are exporting digital repression Democracies should resist

Combo brings together Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping

Today's Washington Post op-ed titled "China and Russia Export Digital Repression. Democracies Must Resist."

The newspaper considered that the description of Central Asia by Ruslan Derbekov - director of digital rights in Almaty, Kazakhstan - as "between two big brothers", is an appropriate description, given that the region has been going through a digitization process in recent years that relies heavily on imported goods, which is technology derived from China. The rules are derived from Russia. She commented that this is a model that democracies must join together to prevent in both Central Asia and other parts of the world.

The newspaper suggested that the republics of the former Soviet Union - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - entered the Internet relatively late, and that their geopolitical neighbors had introduced them into the authoritarian rules of the game, where both Beijing and Moscow advocate the concept of electronic sovereignty in which governments exercise control severe on its Internet infrastructure.

Democracies must work as seriously as authoritarian regimes to guide newly-connected countries to their ways of working

However, the newspaper believes that there is still some hope for a freer future in the region. She gave an example of Uzbekistan's attempt to ban Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others in November for non-compliance with data location restrictions, but the government backed down after popular protests and admitted that the actions of their organizers were "ill-considered". Several Central Asian countries are testing data protection legislation that reflects European efforts to protect sensitive information of individuals.

The Washington Post concluded that democracies should work as seriously as authoritarian regimes to guide newcomer countries into their ways of doing business. Central Asia, by virtue of its geography and history, may be a particularly hostile region to this endeavour, but the United States and its allies should nonetheless embrace and prioritize active digital diplomacy rather than retreat; While China and Russia are trying to export repression.