China and the Digital Information Stack in the Global South

Barros, Kohlenberg, and Soula map Chinese digital infrastructure expansion in the Global South across four layers: undersea cables, data centres, social media platforms, and content moderation systems. The analysis demonstrates that Chinese infrastructure investment is not simply a commercial strategy but a systematic effort to shape the information environments of developing countries.

The infrastructure layer is the most important and most underanalysed dimension of Chinese information operations in the Global South. While Russian FIMI typically operates through content manipulation on existing platforms, Chinese strategy operates at a deeper level — building the infrastructure through which information flows. For practitioners assessing the long-term information sovereignty implications of Chinese technology investment, this report is the essential reference.