Keeping Watch along the Digital Silk Road

Chinese technology firms are promoting and selling their closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to Central Asia under the banner of China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR). This is problematic because not only are these cameras used by local elites to track people’s whereabouts, but they also enable Chinese businesses and, by extension, Chinese authorities to collect and store big data on Central Asian citizens. This chapter uses an interpretative qualitative frame that features analysis of survey data along with the visual assessment and documentation of Chinese CCTV cameras in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. It seeks to illustrate what the normalization of mass state surveillance, intensified by China’s DSR, has come to mean for individuals’ data and privacy in Central Asia. The chapter finds Central Asians’ widespread support for and understanding of CCTV surveillance and, by extension, their vision of China’s DSR to be influenced by both historical legacies and the lack of democratic mechanisms.