China is building its own internet focused on different values and is exporting that vision to other countries.

True if, as of October 2019, credible evidence shows both parts: (1) China was building a distinct, state-controlled internet model (Great Firewall, cyber sovereignty, censorship) based on values different from the open internet; and (2) China was promoting or exporting that model abroad (for example by exporting surveillance or censorship technology and training, Digital Silk Road infrastructure, or pushing cyber-sovereignty norms internationally). Mostly true if both hold but the exporting is limited in scale. Mixed if only one part is well supported. Mostly false if the export is speculative or very marginal. False if neither part holds.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 [PDF] Exporting digital authoritarianism: The Russian and Chinese models Brookings Institution (policy brief)

   “China has increasingly become the supplier of choice for illiberal regimes looking to deploy surveillance systems of their own.”

2. E2 Global Freedom Declines as Chinese, Russian Info Control Practices Spread, Says Study Radio Free Asia · 17 September 2019

   “To date, over one hundred countries have bought, imitated, or been trained by Russia and China in information control,”

3. E3 Countering Chinese Censorship U.S. Agency for Global Media (Open Technology Fund) · 8 August 2019

   “In the last year alone, China has provided technical assistance or training to over 50 countries, including surveillance technologies and trainings on online information management.”

4. E4 IG136001 U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (hearing transcript, 'China's Digital Authoritarianism') · 16 May 2019

   “Many American leaders fear that China threatens not just specific U.S. interests but the very survival of liberal democracy in a U.S.-led international order. In my view, these fears get the challenge from Beijing wrong.”

The evidence supports the claim's second part: China was supplying surveillance technology and information-control training to many countries [E1][E2][E3]. None of the quoted evidence describes China building its own distinct domestic internet model, so the first part of the criteria, which the true verdict depends on, is not settled.