Fair and equitable access to technology, a public good, is an inalienable right to development that should be enjoyed by all countries. However, despite the ongoing wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, as well as the rapid rise of digital technologies, green innovations and artificial intelligence (AI), the digital and green technology gap between the Global North and the Global South is widening. AI is helping the strong get stronger, while the Global South tends to be confined to the lower rungs of global value chains.
After missing out on previous industrial revolutions, why are Global South countries still facing the risk of being sidelined amidst this ongoing technological leap? The answer may be that colonialism, which once severely constrained the development of these nations, has never truly disappeared. Instead, it has evolved into new forms, leveraging new technologies to exploit, suppress and even enslave Global South countries – a phenomenon now termed technological colonialism.
Technological colonialism is a new form of economic exploitation, through which a handful of nations try to maintain their technological dominance. They have leveraged their digital hegemony with an aim to collect more raw data, the most critical resource in the digital era. For example, the United States is home to 40 percent of the world’s data storage centers, while nearly half of African nations don’t have their own data centers, leaving them at a strategic disadvantage in the digital realm.
A select few countries have further strengthened their dominance by steering global technology governance, perpetuating exclusivity of advanced technologies. Statistics reveal that 95 percent of international tech standards are set by Western countries, and 80 percent of global technologies are transferred from Western countries. Currently, the patent fees collected by Western countries are nearly 100 times those collected by the Global South, with the United States alone accounting for nearly 40 percent of the global total.
As great power rivalry and geopolitical tensions intensify, the politicization and weaponization of technology become more serious, leading to fragmentation in some high-tech sectors. A few countries have established ideology-based exclusive frameworks such as the so-called “Democratic Technology Alliance” and the “Chip 4 Alliance”. Under the banner of “my own country first”, they promote protectionist policies such as “Securing the Clean Energy Supply Chain” and “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism”. They pay lip service when it comes to transferring green technologies to developing countries, but go all out to suppress China’s renewable energy technologies and products conducive to cutting carbon emissions.
Technological colonialism hinders the technological advancement of the Global South. What’s worse, it constrains their minds. Decades of technological underdevelopment and dependency have fostered a defeatist mentality in many nations. They have no confidence or motivation to pursue technological innovation, but are accustomed to relying on others for help. Such an attitude traps them in the pitfall of dependency.
Escaping from the grip of technological colonialism calls for proactive actions. The Global South shouldn’t put itself at the mercy of a few other countries. Instead, it must strengthen technological self-reliance and foster South-South cooperation, striving to become both drivers and beneficiaries of the ongoing technological revolution. On the one hand, Global South countries should increase investment in R&D, enhance technological innovation capacities, and improve policies and regulations to protect domestic enterprises, market and data. On the other hand, they should promote collaboration in areas such as digital infrastructure, digitalized industrial management and cross-border e-commerce to accelerate digital transformation. The Global Digital Compact recently adopted at the UN Summit of the Future and the UN General Assembly’s Resolution on Enhancing International Cooperation on Capacity-Building of Artificial Intelligence proposed by China has received extensive support from the Global South. These initiatives offer relevant countries an opportunity to make global technological governance more equitable, inclusive and open, an opportunity such countries should seize to make technology truly serve as a catalyst for sustainable development for the benefit of all peoples.
The author is a Beijing-based international affairs commentator.
The views don’t necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
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