Читать книгу Регионы в современном мире: глобализация и Азия. Зарубежное регионоведение - Коллектив авторов, Ю. Д. Земенков, Koostaja: Ajakiri New Scientist - Страница 27

Outlining the influence of the presently evolving digitalization on ASEAN and its member states, the following points deserve distinguishing.

First, the global economy faces a kind of “productivity paradox”, as the exponential increase in technological development is not accompanied by the commensurate rise of productivity. Technologically advanced solutions, like gaming, interactive advertising, on-line shopping etc., focus on consumption and entertainment rather than production. For the ASEAN states, this scenario leads to a serious crisis of values as it undermines the East Asian work ethics as a pivotal prerequisite for new economic success stories.

Second, the Fourth Industrial Revolution incentivizes the association to seriously revise its formats and initiatives of economic regionalism. The present regulatory frameworks of multilateral trade, be it the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) or the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) were developed before the present digitalization of international trade. Accordingly, these frameworks do not grasp the present essence of digital products and services. This incentivizes the association to perform a double-edged task – to digitally support its multilateral economic initiatives and to upgrade their regulatory formats, both under serious time constraints.

Lastly, an increasingly worrying trend resulting from the on-going digital exchanges is a decrease of internal manageability in the Southeast Asian states. Among the noticeable developments, the so-called eco-chambers are noteworthy. The grass-root citizens subscribe to the media resources, including those that cover politicized issues on religion, ethno-separatism etc., which correspond to their preferences and ignore alternative sources of information42. Apart from spreading fake news, this allows politicians to manipulate the public opinion during the election campaigns, as well as to mobilize, should the need arise, large masses of people to anti-government protests. Even more significant aftereffect for ASEAN member states is the rise of terrorist activity in the digital sphere. In the Internet, terrorists may carry out their illegal activities without the risk of imprisonment while crypto-currency and blockchain technologies can be used for financing acts of terrorism. Moreover, in the Internet the dissemination of extremist literature is easy as this can be done quickly and in great numbers.

A relatively new but critically important development is the politicization of the dialogue between ASEAN and its partners, mainly China and the United States, in the digital sphere. As China’s and the US’ mega-strategies the Belt and Road Initiative and the Indo-Pacific region further evolve, their digital components come into conflict ASEAN’s interests.

China’s Digital Silk Road as part of the BRI is premised upon Beijing’s intention to set the standards of digital cooperation from both “hard” and “soft” infrastructure perspective. As China strengthens its positions in the international industrial cooperation, it expands the reach of its ICT solutions. A representative example is the railway that will connect Laos and China includes the ICT-services accounting for 3.67 million dollars43. Of equal, if not greater, importance is the supportive function of China’s digital operating systems for the Chinese companies which expand its activity abroad and, by using the Alibaba Cloud and the data centers in other countries, have very few operating costs. This means that ASEAN’s industrial sector will be naturally slipping into China’s rules of digital game.

The security implications of the Digital Silk Road for ASEAN are also likely to be far-reaching. As Southeast Asia integrates in China’s digital space, the aftereffects will range from the PRC’s possibilities to manipulate information during the elections (for instance, at the electronic voting and the vote-count procedures) to gathering security-related information. If this scenario even partially materializes, the degree of ASEAN’s vulnerability vis-à-vis China may well increase exponentially.

The US-ASEAN cooperation also includes the digital component. Of note is the US-ASEAN Cyber Dialogue. In the view of the US, ASEAN is a fast-growing market for digital services. The US-ASEAN Business Council estimates that there are 914 million active mobile connections in ASEAN, almost 1.5 times its population44. But the cyber-security remains underdeveloped, because of which in November 2019 the first session of the US-ASEAN cyber dialogue was convened45. The Indo-Pacific Region as the response to the BRI also has the digital narrative. Of note is the US’ Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy is supplemented by the Digital Connectivity and Cyber-Security Partnership, launched in July 2018. Specifically, the initiative advocates the improvement of cybersecurity systems, since now the losses from their shortcomings cost the region $ 300 billion annually. Another problem is the weak development of cyber competencies. DCCP pledges to solve this problem but recognizes that in order to maintain the current growth rates, the region will have to invest $ 2.3 trillion by 2030 only in telecommunications46. Taking into account the politicization of the Indo-Pacific narrative, this means that the Sino-US contradictions are embracing the digital space.