{"id":4639,"date":"2024-10-08T10:06:30","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T08:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/?p=4639"},"modified":"2024-10-08T10:06:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T08:06:30","slug":"chinese-big-brother-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistaeco.com\/en\/2024\/10\/08\/chinese-big-brother-for-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Big Brother for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese exports of AI-based surveillance systems frequently find their way to autocratic countries, especially during periods of internal turbulence. Far from promoting democracy, in these cases trade facilitates repression and the entrenchment of dictatorial regimes. This is why a well-designed regulation is needed.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush once said that “no nation on earth has discovered a way to import goods and services from the world while blocking foreign ideas at the border.” In an era when democracies dominated the technological frontier, the ideas Bush referred to were those associated with the U.S. economic policy model. But now that China has become a major innovator in artificial intelligence, could the same economic integration push countries in a direction opposed to the liberal one? The question is particularly relevant for developing countries, many of which are not only institutionally fragile but also increasingly tied to China through trade, foreign aid, loans, and investments.<\/span><\/p>\n

China Leads in Facial Recognition Exports<\/b><\/h3>\n

AI is often hailed as the foundation for a “fourth industrial revolution,” but it brings many new challenges. While AI technologies can drive economic growth in the coming years, they could also threaten democracies, aid autocrats in their quest for social control, and give more power to “surveillance capitalists” who manipulate our behaviour and profit from the data trails we leave online. China widely and aggressively uses AI-based facial recognition to support its citizen surveillance system. In our research, we decided to analyse the patterns and political consequences of trading these technologies. After building a database on the global trade of AI facial recognition technologies from 2008 to 2021, we identified 1,636 agreements involving 36 exporting countries and 136 importing countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first result we obtained is that China has an undeniable advantage in this sector: compared to the United States, it exports to about twice as many countries (83 versus 57) and has concluded about 10% more trade agreements (238 versus 211). Its comparative advantage in AI-based facial recognition surpasses that achieved in exporting other frontier technologies like radioactive materials, steam turbines, and laser processes. Several factors may have contributed to securing China’s advantage in this sector, but the Chinese government has made global primacy in AI an explicit and strategic development goal. At the same time, the facial recognition industry has benefited from the Chinese government’s demand for surveillance technology, often gaining access to large government databases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who Are the Importing Countries?<\/b><\/h3>\n

Our second finding is that autocracies and weak democracies are more likely to import facial recognition technologies from China. The United States exports this type of technology predominantly to mature democracies (about two-thirds of its exports and three-quarters of its agreements). China’s exports in this field are directed in roughly equal quantities towards mature democracies and towards autocracies or weak democracies. The question then is: does Beijing’s preference for these autocracies apply to the export of any goods or only to some? When we look at the data, we find that AI-based facial recognition is the only one where there is a preference for autocracies by China. A similar distortion is not found in exports from the United States. One possible explanation for the different attitudes is that autocracies and weak democracies specifically turn to China when it comes to purchasing surveillance technologies. This brings us to our third data-supported finding: autocracies and weak democracies tend to import facial recognition technologies from Beijing\u2014not from the United States\u2014during years characterised by internal unrest and disorder, not before and not after. Imports of military technology follow a similar trend. On the contrary, mature democracies do not import more facial recognition technologies in response to street protests. But do the countries importing surveillance technology from China also experience other more extensive institutional changes? Our analysis shows that imports of Chinese surveillance technologies during episodes of internal instability are indeed associated with elections that become less fair, less peaceful, and less credible. A similar pattern seems to apply to imports of surveillance AI from the United States, though in this case the estimate is less precise. There is no association between imports of surveillance AI and the institutional quality of mature democracies. This leads us to view imports of surveillance technologies and the concurrent deterioration of institutions in autocracies and weak democracies as a result of a regime’s pursuit of greater political control. This view is reinforced by the fact that countries importing large quantities of Chinese surveillance technologies during internal unrest tend to develop less into mature democracies than similar countries with lower imports of surveillance AI. This suggests that the tactics employed by autocracies during periods of turbulence\u2014importing surveillance AI, eroding electoral institutions, and importing military technology\u2014are effective in entrenching non-democratic regimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trade and Democracy: A Non-Univocal Relationship<\/b><\/h3>\n

Our research confirms that trade does not always promote democracy or liberalise regimes. In fact, China’s close integration with the developing world could lead to the opposite result. Thus, stricter regulation of AI trade is necessary, modelled after the regulation of other goods that can have negative consequences. For example, AI surveillance technology trained on data collected for political repression purposes is similar to goods produced with ethically questionable systems like child labour. And if surveillance AI can have negative consequences such as the loss of civil liberties and political rights, it is no different from pollution. Like all dual-use technologies, AI facial recognition can provide benefits to consumers and businesses. But its regulation must be carefully designed to ensure that this frontier technology is spread worldwide without facilitating the advancement of autocratic regimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

This article was produced in collaboration with Project Syndicate.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Bio<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

Martin Beraja is an assistant professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Andrew Kao is a doctoral student at Harvard University and affiliated with the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

David Y. Yang is a professor of economics at Harvard University and director of the Center for History and Economics at Harvard.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Noam Yuchtman is a professor of political economy at the University of Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese exports of AI-based surveillance systems frequently find their way to autocratic countries, especially during periods of internal turbulence. 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