創新的威權擴散：中國數位監控科技輸出對接受國民主自由之影響（2014-2019）

根據自由之家最新的報告，2022年已是全球自由度連續下降的第16年，許多學者試圖去探究這個前景不樂觀的現象的背後原因為何。大部分研究指出不只是民主內部正面臨挑戰，民主同時也必須面對威權主義興起帶來的威脅，其中監控科技便是強化威權主義的一種工具，它在提供安全的同時也引發隱私和人權相關的擔憂。以中國為例，中國是世界上最先進的監控科技出口大國，但中國也被指控因為出於政治利益而利用這種科技來監控和脅迫人民。截至目前為止，中國是世界監控科技主要的提供者，而其應用監控科技成功管控國內的模式也成為其他國家仿效的範例。本文的研究目的之一在於觀察中國將如何透過輸出監控科技影響其他國家。一方面本文採用量化研究方法分析國家輸入中國監控科技與其民主衰退的關係為何。本文發現，當觀察對象為所有科技接受國時，結果顯示與中國在智慧城市中的公共安全事項合作將對其政治權利造成負面影響，若輸入中國的監控設備則會損害其人民的集會自由；當把觀察對象以自由之家定義之「自由國家」和「非自由國家」區分，前者無論是與中國進行何種監控科技的合作，其政治權利或集會自由並不會受到影響，然而非自由國家卻會因為智慧城市合作導致其國內政治權利下降。除此之外，本文亦發現輸入監控設備且加入一帶一路的國家其集會自由受到的不利影響更大。另一方面本文重新探究傳統的威權合作理論並期許「威權擴散」能為監控科技賦能的威權主義的擴散提供更好的解釋。因此，本文提出「創新的威權擴散」概念、試圖在這個框架下解釋委內瑞拉與塞爾維亞近年大幅的民主衰退是否為一種威權擴散。透過個案研究，本文認為中國中興協助委內瑞拉開發的「祖國卡」應為中國的威權擴散，但在缺乏有力證據以及具體影響的結果下，塞爾維亞的個案則不屬於威權擴散的現象。

關鍵字

威權擴散；數位威權主義；民主衰退；中國監控科技；中興通訊；祖國卡；華為；智慧城市

並列摘要

The progress of global democratization has shown signs of stagnating since the “third wave of democratization” ended—In fact, this year marked the 16th consecutive year that the freedom of the world still declines, according to the latest Freedom House report. Overwhelmed by both this issue and curiosity, scholars have been delving into searching the roots of this unpromising phenomenon, and most studies suggest that not only is democracy per se encountering challenges but is also forced to face the threat posed by the surge of authoritarianism, which can be empowered by surveillance technology, on which this paper is focusing. While surveillance technology provides safety, it also brings about privacy and human rights concerns if it is used without check and balance, and thus it becomes an instrument for the government showing its proclivity for authoritarianism. Take China for example, it is home to the world’s most advanced surveillance technology and is accused of monitoring and coercing people by such technology for political interest. So far, China has become the main provider of this technology, and its success on domestic control with the technology has made it become a role model for other countries to follow. One purpose of this research is to examine how China will impact the countries that are importing its surveillance technology. This paper applied quantitative methodology to analyze the correlation between the import of China’s surveillance technology and the recession of democracy with collected data. Surprisingly, the result shows that cooperating with Chinese technology company in public safety within smart city project does have a negative effect in all recipient countries’ political rights. In terms of countries’ assembly freedom, importing China’s surveillance equipment has a negative impact. In addition, the result suggests that China’s smart city project leads to a decrease in non-free countries’ political rights, while the freedom in free countries is unaffected by any of the technology cooperation. Moreover, the membership of “One Belt, One Road Initiative,” serving as one of the authoritarian linkages, turns out to enhance not-free countries’ ability of oppressing the freedom of assembly. The other purpose of this paper is to revisit traditional theories of autocracy cooperation and replace it with “authoritarian diffusion” for better explanation of the diffusion of authoritarianism achieved by surveillance technology. This paper thus proposes the concept of “the diffusion of authoritarian innovation” and explains the case of Venezuela’s and Serbia’s democracy decline using this framework. Through case studies, this paper concludes that the “Fatherland Card” project should be considered as China’s authoritarian diffusion in Venezuela, but the case in Serbia can’t be proved as the effort of China’s authoritarian diffusion due to the lack of evidence and specific consequence of Chinese surveillance technology.

並列關鍵字

Authoritarian diffusion ； Digital authoritarianism ； Democracy recession ； China’s surveillance technology ； ZTE ； Fatherland Card ； Huawei ； Smart city