New technology and its power to influence geopolitics; smaller nations now stand a chance

By Tanaka Mhembere

THE high pace and level of development of information and communication technologies (ICT) have transformed not only the space surrounding a person, making it limitless, but also changed the modern system of international relations.

The arena of geopolitical confrontation has shifted to the sphere of ICT. Digital technologies and resources are gradually compared in value with geopolitical factors and the military-political power of states.

For this reason, any state, even the smallest, but possessing modern cyber-technologies, is capable of becoming a major player in the global digital space.

Today, it is the level of ICT development that determines the status of a state in the international arena and is an important factor for the growth of the national economy.

The explosive development of cyber-technologies is pushing for the acquisition of strategic advantages. Strategic stability is ensured not so much by the military as by the technological parity of the main actors in international relations.

Therefore, today ICT is becoming a strategic line of the American-Chinese confrontation, which we can observe especially clearly in Africa. China is striving for technological independence and is trying to close the gap with the United States.

Washington is alarmed by Beijing, which creates its own digital technologies and claims to be the world technological leader, which is already ahead of its American counterparts in terms of the level of development of some new civilian network technologies, such as 5G.

The expressed interest in 5G technologies from the European Union, an American strategic partner, only reinforces this concern and, as a result, intensifies US actions to wage a large-scale trade and economic war against China, penetrating into the sphere of technology standards regulation.

Although the European Union is a key ally and partner of the United States, it is clearly not inclined to dive deep into a confrontation between them and China, since it is fraught with the loss of the Chinese market and mutually beneficial European-Chinese ties.

Apparently, the sharpness of the American-Chinese confrontation, which is acquiring a fundamental…