Dec. 8, 2017 -This week, China held the fourth World Internet Conference in Wizhen, with the implementation of the Digital Silk Road on the agenda. President Xi, in an opening statement last Sunday (Dec. 3), stressed “cyber sovereignty” that states should manage and contain their own Internet without interference. This will be important in being free to build the Silk Road projects, without attempts at outside interference or sabotage.

An important aspect of China’s push for the expansion of access to the Internet among the Silk Road countries, is to enable high technology development corridors, and to be able to build the large-scale infrastructure projects underway and planned. Much of the transportation infrastructure, for example, will traverse rural or uninhabited land, such as deserts. There must be a reliable communications and information network so phases of construction, delivery of materials, and availability of infrastructure will flow smoothly.

At the conference, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Laos, Serbiia, and the UAE were amoing the countries that “agreed to cooperation with China in the digital economy to build an interconnected Digital Silk Road,” {NZ city} reports.

The Space Silk Road serves a compatible function, providing a view from Earth orbit that creates new tools with which to supervise, plan, map, and evaulate great projects. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is discussed as a concrete example of the application of digital technology, in Pakistan’s {Daily Times} on Dec.6.

The article details the CPEC projects, and the digital technologies that will make it a “high tech digital corridor.” Some progress is already being made, the article reports, in Africa. For eaxmple, the Exim Bank of China is providing technical expertise and is investing $1 billion for Internet connectivity in Cameroon, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Togo, and Niger.