Hawaii researchers have laid out what they call China’s “digital grand strategy” that would reshape Chinese society with possible massive global implications as more business goes digital.

John Hemmings of Honolulu think tank Pacific Forum and Dave Dorman, a former adviser to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command at Camp Smith, discussed their recent report “Digital China: The Strategy and Its Geopolitical Implications” during a media roundtable Wednesday hosted by the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Press Center in Washington, D.C.

“It’s a digital strategy that drives all efforts within China,” said Hemmings. “This is not just an industrial strategy, it is not just a technology-sector strategy. This covers every area of political, economic, military, even foreign policy and China’s place in the world.”

Businesses and government agencies around the world are increasingly turning to digital tools to run their operations. Storing, managing and protecting data has become an everyday concern. Hemmings said that China seeks to “establish sort of control over data and a relationship between the citizens and the government that is through the lens of Marxism, codified into data hierarchy and data usage.”

The researchers said “Digital China” has been discussed in Chinese-language media for years but that the English channels of China’s state-controlled media have only recently been making reference to it. Their paper credits Chinese leader Xi Jinping as personally central to strategy.

“He actually has been thinking about this idea of data and the importance of data in government and in empowering China as a great power since the 2000s when he was governor of Fujian province,” Hemmings explained. “He sort of co-opted an academic campaign called Digital Fujian, and so even to this day you can see the connection, the intellectual line between Fujian and Digital China with Xi Jinping as its architect.”

As China has emerged as a superpower, it has extended its influence around the world, investing heavily in real estate, businesses and development programs. Dorman said that one of the driving forces of Digital China is the idea that “China can be digitally transformed as it modernizes and will create a socialist modernized society that provides an alternative worldwide to capitalism.”

The nature of China’s changing economy has been a subject of fierce debate around the world. After the death of Communist leader Mao Zedong, China went through a series of major reforms. Western companies set up factories and a wealthy class emerged, benefiting greatly from global capitalism and trade. While almost all Chinese companies continue to have close ties to the Communist Party, Chinese investors and corporations regularly rake in billions of dollars and Chinese CEOs live just as lavishly as any others around the world.

Hemmings said “most people dispel the idea that Marxism is a really driving ideology of China, but we believe that the facts indicate that whether they believe it or not they’re using the language of Marxism to structure this strategy.”

In recent years China’s growing use of technology to surveil its citizens has alarmed human rights groups around the world. The Chinese government also has collected troves of data on Americans. Meanwhile, the Chinese government heavily censors and regulates the internet within its own borders through a series of programs and policies collectively and colloquially referred to as “The Great Firewall of China.”

Dorman said there are several aspects of Digital China he finds worrying, but that ultimately it needs to be understood as principally about Chinese interests as the country charts its course for the 21st century.

“There’s aspects of these programs that I personally would see as authoritarian,” said Dorman. “But Xi Jinping’s intent is truly to improve the lifestyle of Chinese citizens by the application of digital technology. Major portions of this program are focused on rural revitalization and provision of services, the digitalization of taxation services, easier access to digital government.”

The digital space has at times become a battleground as the U.S. and China hack each other’s systems. Both sides have accused the other of cyberattacks over the years. Hemmings said that Xi “views technology in the digital area as sort of this competition that China has to win, and so the (Communist Party) has to be in control of the mechanisms of information.”