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application of information and network security.”17 Through Fang Binxing, Geedge Networks is also closely linked with another Chinese State-owned company, China Electronics Information Industry Group (中国电信息产业集团有限公, CEC), where he has been the chief scientist.18 As previously exposed by Justice For Myanmar in 2024, CEC's wholly owned subsidiary China National Electronics Import and Export Corporation (中国电进出有限公, CEIEC) has supplied a location tracking system to the junta controlled Information Technology and Cyber Security Department (ITCSD) of the Ministry of Transport and Communications through Myanmar broker Mascots Group.19 Justice For Myanmar reiterates its call for sanctions against the Mascots Group network for its role in supplying surveillance technology to the military junta. Geedge Networks has associated itself with China's Belt and Road Initiative, a core component of China's foreign policy that seeks to further enhance connectivity between China and countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America.20 Myanmar officially joined the China Belt and Road Initiative in 2017, when State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on a state visit to Beijing.21 Numerous other agreements and MoUs were signed subsequently related to key projects within this cooperation framework.22 This included a 2018 MoU between the two countries for the construction of a China-Myanmar Economic Corridor.23 Considered a vital artery of the Belt and Road Initiative, the economic corridor foresees the establishment of two transport lines from the port of Kyaukphyu in the Bay of Bengal and from Yangon that converge at Mandalay and continue to the Chinese border at Muse with special economic zones (SEZs) and industrial zones set up adjacent to major cities and along the border.24 Another component of the Belt and Road Initiative is the 'Digital Silk Road' that specifically focuses on digital infrastructure and technology projects, and seeks to promote Chinese technology, goods, and services in Belt and Road partner countries.25 By Fang Binxing's own account, Geedge Networks was founded in response to the Chinese Government's official "go global" policy ( 出去战略) that encouraged Chinese enterprises to invest overseas, including through opportunities provided by joining the Belt and Road Initiative, in the process linking the initiative to surveillance, censorship and the serious human rights and international law violations that stem from Geedge's sophisticated systems.26 子走 8 子口 Academy of Sciences, which, by its own account, focuses on "the research and

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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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