You don’t need a totalitarian regime, you only need corrupt politicians. And China is notorious for giving “incentives” to politicians, to get mega projects done by Chinese contractors.
In our country, our corrupt politicians have welcomed many Chinese projects, one of which is the High Speed Rail project that we don’t really need. And somehow our government started using DPI to restrict internet access to blacklisted websites including reddit.
The treaty, originally proposed by Russia and supported by nations such as North Korea, Iran, and China, is suspected to lay the groundwork for legalizing cross-border surveillance and turning online free speech into a criminal act. The draft was subjected to six rounds of negotiations which commenced on Monday at the UN headquarters.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this starts with the BRICS countries first.
Not enough for the DeLorean to go 88 mph
And the countries you mentioned are smaller than China economically, and their political stories in the past and present are not good either.