The Soft Power Effects of India’s Digital Diplomacy: Competitive Comparison with China’s Digital Silk Road

Abstract

Digital technology is becoming a new field for national soft power projection and geopolitical games. This article adopts a comparative research method to analyze the soft power effect of China’s digital Silk Road and India’s digital technology diplomacy in the Global South. China is characterized by the export of heavy assets such as infrastructure and industrial systems, and builds influence through the triple structure of “hard connectivity-soft connectivity-heart connectivity”; India is characterized by the diffusion of light assets such as digital public infrastructure and governance systems, and promotes governance experience through low-cost and open-source paths. The acceptance of China and India is closely related to the existing digital economic development conditions of the target countries. Different initial conditions, such as market maturity, regulatory framework, technology absorption capacity, etc., have guided differentiated cooperation needs, thus affecting their preferences in global digital development programs. Geopolitical preferences have become an important variable, and the “Global South” countries are increasingly adopting mixed strategies. In the future, China and India will present a dual trend of coexistence and competition in the “Global South”, and the strategic autonomy of the “Global South” countries will continue to shape the final direction of this digital competition.