The chilling truth from Davos
The West is under threat, and Isis is just a sideshow, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes.
Open western society has its back to the wall. The rise of the digital techno-giants and the threat of global cyber warfare has upset the foundations of democracy.
Liberal nations may be forced to retreat behind defensive barriers of ‘‘techno-sovereignty’’, shutting down the cross-border flows of data and information we all take for granted.
US general John Rutherford Allen, a former Nato commander and ex-head of the global anti-Isil coalition, said the entire ‘‘Westphalian’’ system of states that has evolved since 1648 is under threat.
The West faces twin dangers from cyberterrorists with access to supercomputing, and above all from authoritarian regimes led by China and Russia that fully enlist their technology companies as an arm of state power.
That was the grim conclusion of a techno-sovereignty gathering at the World Economic Forum. It was chilling. One sensed for the first time that the liberal democracies may actually lose this struggle, with unthinkable consequences.
‘‘What is new about Islamic State – and will be the character of almost every major terrorist organisation in the future – is its capacity for global networking and using the ‘internet of things’ for encrypted messages,’’ said Allen, now president of the Brookings Institution. ‘‘It is a direct threat to national security. Technology is taking off with exponential capacity, potentially for good but also for bad,’’ he said.
Allen fears that military conflict will spin out of control. The US Congress and organs of democracy are half asleep while America’s enemies focus like a laser on how to deploy the new technology arsenal for offensive purposes.
‘‘I think we are there now,’’ he said.
Islamic State is ultimately a sideshow. Nobody can deny any longer that China and America are engaged in an superpower cold war, battling for mastery of 21st-century big data analytics and cutting-edge technology.
As president Xi Jinping himself puts it with crystal clarity: ‘‘China was left behind in the first three industrial revolutions, and paid the price. We intend to win this next round.’’
Frederick Kempe, head of the Atlantic Council, said in Davos that the world is confronted by an ‘‘escalating US-Chinese tech war’’ that spills over into geopolitical and military rivalry.
‘‘The growing danger is that the tech race could become the primary battleground in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, a zero-sum contest for global dominance,’’ he said.
This is taking a menacing twist as Beijing tightens its protototalitarian surveillance state and embarks on a turbocharged push for leadership under its ‘‘Made in China 2025’’ grand plan, which openly flouts WTO rules.
Avril Haines, the former deputy director of the CIA and now at Columbia University, said it is easy for China to ‘‘suck up our data’’ in a one-sided fashion. Reciprocal access is obviously impossible.
China is already exercising techno-sovereignty. Huawei, ZTE, Tencent and other Chinese technology groups act as the spearhead of Chinese national security. On the other side, Facebook, Google and Silicon Valley’s digital companies operate on an entirely different principle as global players seeking profit.
This creates a gaping asymmetry in digital competition. The burning issue for the West is how to organise cyberised society and whether governments should bring these tech-giants to heel. ‘‘Technology is outstripping our ability to manage it. These multinational entities are extraordinarily powerful,’’ said Haines.
An official from the European Commission raised the question that is on everybody’s mind: ‘‘Is the current set up compatible with democracy? Can the West deal with China’s digital authoritarianism?’’
Allen said the US and Europe will face an epochal crisis unless they wake up and grasp the nettle immediately.
Washington is already targeting Huawei for alleged theft of technology. Congress plans legislation to restrict sensitive sales to Chinese telecom operators.
The US has the upper hand in this contest for now but the gap is closing fast. The World Economic Forum said China may achieve parity in autonomous artificial intelligence within five years.
I have been coming to Davos for 13 years. Never before has the confidence of the democracies seemed so low. Never before has the liberal Western order seemed so profoundly threatened.