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Information Harbor Co."70 Referred to as the PRC-ASEAN Information Harbor Myanmar Cloud Computing Center, the project is overseen by Wang Xiao Yu, the Chief Executive Officer of MBT.71 The China-ASEAN Information Harbor is a Guangxi-based information hub and information industrial base serving southwest and central South China as well as ASEAN countries.72 At the origins of the Information Harbour is a joint 2014 proposal by the Guangxi government and the Cyberspace Administration of China which was approved by China's State Council in 2016 and led to the establishment of a specially created joint-stock company – the China-ASEAN Information Harbor Co., Ltd (CAIH).73 The company is mandated to carry out the construction of the information harbor and also provides digital products and services. Its shareholders include China Unicom, the investment arm of Nanning Wuxiang New Area and Qianxun Spatial Intelligence, a high-tech company jointly founded by Alibaba and the Chinese arms company NORINCO.74 Reporting on the 2023 Dialogue on China-ASEAN Information Harbor, the junta controlled Global New Light of Myanmar quoted the junta Deputy Minister for Transport and Communications, Lu Mon, as addressing "disinformation and cybersecurity-related matters" at the conference.75 Global Technology Company Limited (GlobalNet) Myanmar company Global Technology Group provides mobile, voice, and data infrastructure, managed services, cloud computing and IT services. It has installed Geedge systems at its data centres in Mandalay, Yangon and Tachilek. The group claims to work across various sectors, including media, technology, real estate, development finance services and trading.76 The company claims more than 30,000 households and 3,000 enterprises as its customers,77 including the crony companies Max Myanmar, CB Bank and Myan Shwe Pyi Tractors, the latter of which is a registered supplier of the Myanmar military's directorate of procurement.78 As has been previously exposed by Justice For Myanmar, GlobalNet also supplies dark fibre to Mytel.79 Dark fibre is unused, unlit physical fibre optic cables that are available for lease and that, unlike "lit" fibre where a service provider manages the network, allows lessee companies to operate their own network, controlling their own equipment, bandwidth, and security.80 26

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Silk Road of Surveillance: The role of China's Geedge Networks and Myanmar telecommunications operators in the junta's digital terror campaign

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Burmese
English

Topic

Digital Rights
Digital Surveillance
Internet Restrictions
Military Coup

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Justice for Myanmar

Date Published: Sep 9, 2025

Abstract: A new leaked dataset reveals the Chinese company Geedge Networks’ business in Myanmar and exposes a significant number of telecommunications companies that are implementing sophisticated surveillance and censorship technology on behalf of the illegal Myanmar military junta. The leaked dataset offers detailed insights into the inner workings of Chinese internet surveillance and censorship technology that is exported to Myanmar by a company that frames its work as associated with China's Belt and Road Initiative. The dataset has been reviewed by a coalition of media and non-governmental/civil society organisations through the Great Firewall Export project made up of Amnesty International, InterSecLab, the Globe and Mail, Paper Trail Media, Tor Project, DER STANDARD, and Follow The Money. The Internet in Myanmar since the military’s February 2021 illegal coup attempt is among the most restricted in the world. The rolling out of a commercialised version of China’s Great Firewall gives the junta unprecedented access to and control over the online activities of 33.4 million internet users in Myanmar. Notably, the hardware, software and support provided by Geedge Networks to the Myanmar military junta enables the tracking of network traffic at the individual level and can identify the geographic location of mobile subscribers in real time by linking their activity to specific cell identifiers (cell IDs). As such, the junta has an enhanced capability to effectively track down, arrest, torture and kill human rights defenders, journalists and revolutionary forces across the country. The military junta can do so with the direct assistance of telecommunications companies in Myanmar exposed in the dataset – including ATOM (formerly Telenor Myanmar), Mytel, Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), Ooredoo Myanmar, Frontiir, StreamNet , Golden TMH Telecom, Internet Maekhong Network (IM-Net), Myanmar Broadband Telecom (MBT), Myanmar Telecommunication Network (MTN), Campana, Global Technology Group and China Unicom – that are integral to the set-up of a national firewall for the Myanmar junta. This investigation into the business dealings of Geedge Networks with the Myanmar junta builds on a June 2024 report by Justice For Myanmar into how Geedge was initiating country-wide internet surveillance and censorship through the junta-controlled Information Technology and Cyber Security Department (ITCSD) of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC). 1 By providing hardware and software to the illegal Myanmar military junta, Geedge may be aiding and abetting in the commission of crimes against humanity, including the acts of torture and killing, carried out by members of the junta within a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. Further investigation is required on this. In the meantime, Geedge Networks is limiting the rights to freedom of expression, association, and digital movement of the people of Myanmar. For that reason, Geedge Networks should be targeted with international sanctions, and individuals in directive and leadership positions within the company should be investigated for aiding and abetting violations of international human rights laws and potentially also international crimes. Telecommunications companies identified in the Geedge dataset as supporting the junta’s online surveillance machinery should be held to account for the serious risks of online and offline violence, and de facto harms such as arrests, torture and killings, of Myanmar civilians. Geedge Networks is closely affiliated with the Chinese state and export of its systems to Myanmar align with the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s involvement in the mass surveillance and repression of the civilian population in Myanmar is part of a broader pattern in which the Chinese government remains a principal supplier of arms to the Myanmar junta, aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Silk Road of Surveillance: The role of China's Geedge Networks and Myanmar telecommunications operators in the junta's digital terror campaign

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