China’s Digital War on Terrorism: Can Mass Surveillance and Cyber Censorship Radicalize a Nation

In short, for over twenty years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been limiting online freedoms and restricting any and all content in cyberspace that could destabilize the Party and the reign of President Xi Jinping. [...] To note, this project was part of a broader research effort I undertook in support of my doctoral dissertation – a large part of which was focused on China’s cyber strategy and the CCP’s control of the digital domain, both at home and abroad. [...] Rather, I have observed nationalism rooted in everything from China’s ascent as a global power player and economic superpower, to the country’s technological innovations, to individual of family wealth, to pervasive political rhetoric – much of which is connected to Xi Jinping and his greatness. [...] To echo Kine (2021), China has, in my view, essentially “…reframe[d] state repression of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang” as part of a the country’s War on Terror – something the CCP has been seized with for decades. [...] Going forward, further research and analysis will be needed to determine the extent to which China’s Great Firewall is contributing to nationalism and extremist views, and the degree to which Xi Jinping’s increasingly personalist leadership style has permeated into the nation’s psyche, and what that might mean in terms of nationalism, extremism, and terrorism for the country in the future.