Jonathan E. Hillman is a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State, where he works in the Office of Policy Planning. He was formerly a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. He has also served as a policy advisor to the U.S. Trade Representative, testified before Congress, briefed Fortune 500 executives, and his commentary has been published in the
Washington Post, the
Financial Times and the
Wall Street Journal.'One of the most interesting and original thinkers about the rise of China' - Peter Frankopan
A Guardian Best Paperback of July 2022
Its vast infrastructure projects now extend from the ocean floor to outer space, and from Africa's megacities into rural America. China is wiring the world, and, in doing so, rewriting the global order.
As things stand, the rest of the world still has a choice. But the battle for tomorrow will require America and its allies to take daring risks in uncertain political terrain. Unchecked, China will reshape global flows of data to reflect its own interests - and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its systems.
Taking readers on a global tour of these emerging battlefields, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals what China's digital footprint looks like on the ground, and explores the dangers of a world in which all routers lead to Beijing.
An expert on China's growing digital empire provides an urgent look at the battle to connect and control tomorrow's networks
Hillman is surely right that Chinese tech makes the world a more dangerous place than we once hoped ... The prospect that [he] sets up is terrifyingA probing look at China's quest to dominate the technosphere [and] a cogent warning that the West has much work to do if it is to contain Chinese expansion into cyberspaceEngrossing ... Hillman weaves together academic research with on-the-ground journalism to paint a vivid picture of China's Digital Silk Road efforts
The Digital Silk Road traces China's rise as a digital superpower and provides a sobering analysis of its challenge to American technological leadership, economic competitiveness, and national security. Jonathan Hillman shows how private entrepreneurship and government support have enabled a technologically backward country to acquire leading-edge communications capabilities long thought to be the exclusive preserve of rich democracies. This important and well-crafted book should be required readingEssential reading for understanding one of the greatest geostrategic challenges of our age: China's technological rise and global push to dominate the vital systems upon which militaries, markets, and modern societies dependAn urgent, engaging look at China's push to build digital influence and leverage, project by project, as it makes a play for global dominanceXi's path to absolute power ... has created a personality cult that demands even more repression and controls than George Orwell could have imagined ... The challenge to open societies is real, if daunting, and this book offers a deep analysis of that threat and some possibilities of how it can be tackledAssiduously researched and compellingly written ... Behind the Great Firewall, Hillman provides a thorough account of an increasingly controlled internet
Praise for The Emperor's New Silk Road:
An outstanding book by one of the most interesting and original thinkers about the rise of China, the Belt and Road Initiative and what both mean for the rest of the world. Filled with insights into the changing world of the 21st century - essential reading
A timely and fascinating account of how China is shaping the digital universe, redrawing the connections that carry data from ocean floor to outer space, and harnessing the means by which both commerce and warfare will increasingly be conducted, framed in a century-defining contest for controlFor all the hype and hand-wringing over how the [Belt and Road] could usher in the Chinese century, Hillman's engaging mix of high-level analysis and fieldwork in more than a dozen countries paints a much more nuanced pictureA first-rate blend of analysis and journalistic reporting from the front lines of economic statecraft
