Development or Domination? Unravelling China's Hybrid Infrastructure Ambitions

News18

4 days ago

China's increasing deployment of development infrastructure as a tool of geopolitical coercion signifies a dangerous evolution in hybrid statecraft
As China increasingly swells up with ambition to become the regional and global hegemon, its trojan-horse tactics of acquiring geopolitical leverage are correspondingly turning more evident and insidious. The country has, particularly under Xi Jinping, garnered international attention for its revisionist and expansionist manoeuvres along its borders and the South China Sea, as well as entrenching its surveillance state and intensifying systemic persecution of its religious minorities such as the Uyghurs and the Tibetans.
Recently, a June 2025 report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies has uncovered in detail China's deployment of hybrid or 'grey-zone' infrastructure which is constructed under the neutral garb of economic development but covertly serves as a geopolitical tool to ensure compellence or deterrence.
As opposed to being a new practice, the report highlights that major powers have long exploited infrastructure-based dependencies as a tool of geostrategic coercion. However, the scale of China's activities and its impact on the affected countries makes it a unique case and one that must be monitored and checked. The report outlines three areas wherein this strategy of China can be observed- water, land, and the digital domain. For the first two, China has relied on its coercive control of Tibet to exploit its resource-abundant qualities and strategic location.
Home to the great Himalayas, the Tibetan plateau houses massive glaciers that melt and provide water to the rivers that flow downstream into India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. Since China annexed Tibet in the 1950s and early 60s, it has embarked on a project of relentless dam construction and diversion of water to the arid lands in the north. However, in the past decade or so, what has also been observed is the scaled-up construction of these dams and hydro-power projects particularly near the border areas and disputed zones.
This not only creates a point of contention with respect to claim to territory but also threatens the downstream countries with change in the flow of water, artificial floods or drought, and destruction of ecological and economic structures. This is the reason why China's hydraulic activities on the Brahmaputra River frequently become an issue for India and Bangladesh wherein lives and livelihoods are dependent on the flow of the river, which increasingly rests in Beijing's hand. Similarly, China's construction of dams on the Mekong River since the 1980s has severely impacted water levels, flow, and sediment collection, causing huge damages to downstream Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand.
The next domain that the report highlights is China's use of land settlement and connectivity projects in the name of development to incrementally seize disputed or neighboring territory. This has been seen in the case of the nearly 1,000 xiaokang or 'well-off' villages along the LAC, most recently added in Arunachal Pradesh, India. This is a known tactic by China which has also received the name 'salami-slicing' and serves to avoid full-scale war while surreptitiously and gradually encroaching into another's territory.
These settlements are accompanied by the construction of transportation infrastructure like roads and railways, under the pretext of achieving connectivity and integration for these remote villages. However, this infrastructure serves a dual-purpose of quick military mobilisation in case a conflict breaks out, thereby positioning China with a great advantage as it pursues activities that are sure to cause conflicts sooner or later.
Finally, China employs the export of its digital technologies to execute surveillance and persecution; it influences digital governance policies in recipient countries, effectively exporting its authoritarian model. An example of this is Nepal, which having awarded the Chinese telecom giant Huawei the contract to upgrade the country's telecom sector in 2010 found the company deeply entrenched in its Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MOCIT) over the years.
The report highlights cases wherein China digitally monitored and then targeted Tibetan refugees and dissidents in Nepal, while also influencing Nepalese officials regarding the country's policies on media, censorship, digital surveillance and freedom. As China increases the export of its digital gear into countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it will become exceedingly urgent for global democracies to put norms in place to curtail this unhinged expansion of digital authoritarianism.
In sum, China's increasing deployment of development infrastructure as a tool of geopolitical coercion signifies a dangerous evolution in hybrid statecraft. By weaponising water resources, strategically expanding land settlement and connectivity infrastructure, and exporting digital surveillance technologies, China is subtly projecting itself as the regional hegemon. This has grave implications for both short- and long-term regional stability and security, sovereignty, and democratic governance.
The international community must demonstrate urgency in dealing with this menace and encourage countries to collaborate with transparent actors, rather than an authoritarian and revisionist state like China, to pursue development. Moreover, there must be a mechanism through which China's unilateral exploitation and strategic positioning of water and territory is accounted for, impeded, and sanctioned.
The writer is an author and a columnist. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
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