A Digital Empire in the Making: China's Outbound Digital Platforms

Under the Internet Plus policy, China’s Internet and digital economy become unprecedentedly important during the post-2008 economic restructuring. Using the Internet as a metaphor to represent the broader Web-oriented communications commodity chains that encompass access devices, networks, and services and applications, and by examining three state–corporate disputes involving Foxconn, Qualcomm, and Alibaba, this article historicizes the political economy of China’s digital economy, especially the liberalized and quasiliberalized sections, and then characterizes the nature of the state’s interventions under the auspices of economic restructuring. It argues that the state’s ability to make effective policy for change in this critical field is incoherent. The combination of state-power decentralization and the externally oriented commodity chain for the Web economy is likely to turn Internet Plus into a risky strategy, but the cyber business section of China’s digital capitalism is most likely to benefit.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021

The online platform economy in China has grown to become one of the largest in the world, with several Chinese platform firms rivaling their American counterparts in size, revenue, and market capitalization. Their rise has challenged existing businesses and forced governments to find new ways to regulate the sector without stifling economic growth and innovation. In this paper, we present a structured explanation of the changes in governance of these private firms by the Chinese government as they grew from startups to powerful and indispensable actors in China's political economy. We explore the relationship between the party-state and these platforms, as the former has pursued its core goals of economic growth, technological selfsufficiency, and maintenance of single-party rule. The interactions between the platform economy, the market power of the platform firms, and the Chinese government's goals have led to changes in the governance of the Chinese platform economy.

Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy A political economy of China's new digital capitalism In recent years, China’s leaders have taken decisive action to transform information, communications, and technology (ICT) into the nation's next pillar industry. In Networking China, Yu Hong offers an overdue examination of that burgeoning sector's political economy. Hong focuses on how the state, in conjunction with market forces and class interests, is constructing and realigning its digitalized sector. State planners intend to build a more competitive ICT sector by modernizing the network infrastructure, corporatizing media-and-entertainment institutions, and by using ICT as a crosscutting catalyst for innovation, industrial modernization, and export upgrades. The goal: to end China's industrial and technological dependence upon foreign corporations while transforming itself into a global ICT leader. The project, though bright with possibilities, unleashes implications rife with contradiction and surprise. Hong analyzes the central role of information, communications, and culture in Chinese-style capitalism. She also argues that the state and elites have failed to challenge entrenched interests or redistribute power and resources, as promised. Instead, they prioritize information, communications, and culture as technological fixes to make pragmatic tradeoffs between economic growth and social justice. "In great detail and with the careful reflection of a seasoned scholar, Yu Hong describes the astounding growth of digital technology in China and its complex and powerful ramifications at home and abroad."--Vincent Mosco, author of To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World "Yu Hong's book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the role China's cutting-edge information technology sector has played in the nation's unprecedentedly rapid economic development. She provides excellent insight into the nuances of state policies on key communications systems, and does so with a keen, discerning eye for the vital issues affecting the present and future course of China's networked economy."--Eric Harwit, author of China's Telecommunications Revolution http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/78hhc2pr9780252040917.html

China Perspectives, 2006

Jurnal Asia Pacific Studies, 2020

China's digital transformation has been made China's digital economic capabilities awake sharply. The digitalization of China is determined by several factors which are based on the current globalization. The Chinese government also plays an active role in accelerating the domestic digital transition process and core in way of intensive cooperation with countries in the Asia Pacific region. Changes in Chinese orientation using a digital approach create anxiety for the United States of America with the emergence of the China axis in the region. The framework of the article uses the concept of digitalization to describe the process of digital transformation in China, then Neo-liberalism theory of Robert Keohane & Joseph Nye to explain the pattern of China's cooperation with the region and the Balance of Power as the middle-range theory to emphasize the emergence of China's digital axis in Asia-Pacific. Using descriptive qualitative methods and collecting literature stu...

China’s Digital Silk Road - Strategic Implications for the EU and India, 2020

This report is especially written for audiences in Europe and India, but the findings are equally relevant to global observers. The report offers a big-picture analysis of the Chinese Digital Silk Road’s (DSR) three most strategically pressing implications for the global digital order. The three implications are: a) the creation of a full-fledged Chinese digital backbone; b) the setting of technological standards in the unfolding Fourth Industrial Revolution; and c) the shaping of cyber governance, norms, and a ‘digital experience’ with ‘Chinese characteristics’. The DSR offers countries involved in the initiative with economic opportunities, and can assist in enabling a more level playing field with advanced economies. Equally, it also poses challenges. From the EU and Indian economic and security points of view, neither can afford to ignore the DSR, or be reactionary in policy responses.

China’s Digital Silk Road is an ambitious and important vision to catalyze global digitalization. What will it mean for digital governance?

Chinese Journal of Communication, 2019

The digital Silk Road, which involves the internationalization of Chinese internet firms across countries that are party to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has remained underexplored in the literature. This paper employs a poststructuralist discourse theory to analyze one of the most important Chinese internet firms, Alibaba, and its initiative for global trade: the electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP). The article argues that the eWTP is a counter-hegemonic discourse that, based on the economic and technological power of Alibaba and its support of the BRI, attempts to globalize a China-centered and privately led global digital trade order to challenge the previous wave of US-led globalization. However, the eWTP has at least five contradictions. First, despite its criticisms of globalization, the initiative remains essentially neoliberal. Secondly, it sidelines inherent tensions with the Chinese state-centric internet governance model. Thirdly, it excludes some social identities and makes utopian promises. Fourthly, it is unclear to what extent it really will be inclusive. Finally, unless carefully hedged, it might entrap partner countries in new types of problematic digital dependence.

2020

This paper will analyze the digital policies of China by focusing on the role of political values in liberal world order. China’s advanced technology based upon their unique digital values, which are absolutely different from the EU and the USA’s main ideas. This study will present this issue in five parts. Before starting, I talk about Realist and Liberal Understandings of International Relations and the basic principles of liberal international system. First, I shed light on current policies of China by focusing its main strategies. In the second part, I touch upon Digital Silk Road and Made in China policies of Chinese government. In the third part, I mention about 5G technologies and surveillance mechanisms of Chinese government. In the fourth part, I will talk about main strategies of the USA against the principles of China. In conclusion, I will blend all the things I have described and draw a general framework.

Media, Culture & Society, 2022

This article situates China's efforts to toughen the regulation of its tech companies since the late 2010s in the global context of Big Techs rein-in and the specific trajectory of economic development in China. Focusing on the three-phase development of Alibaba and Tencent since the late 1990s, we propose a regional and historical approach to study platform capitalism concerning how platform companies, through interacting and negotiating with shifting institutional conditions, have developed novel business models, organizational structures, and technological innovations. Not a static domination, the state power co-shapes platform capitalism through constant institutional improvisation and innovation and interacting with private players. This geographically and historically conscious approach to platform capitalism not only contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the specificities and historicity of platform capitalism in China, but also helps to deprovincialize platform studies and extend its analytical relevance beyond the Euro-American focus or the disciplinary boundaries.

Journal of Chinese Political Science

To what extent does the coexistence of the empowering Internet and resilient authoritarianism rely on the state-controlled information environment? Drawing on online ethnography and a dataset of Amazon reviews, this article addresses the question by examining the debate over the memoir of a Chinese-American entrepreneur. It finds that such digital experiences, though in a free information environment, have resulted in frustration, anger, and ultimately disenchantment with the West among overseas Chinese. The findings contribute to the growing literature on digital orientalism and digital authoritarian resilience.

Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative, 2021

This special feature brings together three original articles on Internet finance, grassroots programmers, and an e-psychotherapy platform, respectively, to engage in the ongoing debate on China's e-commerce and digital economy. The three authors contribute to a rethinking of the Chinese digital capitalism from the perspective of sociology (Nicholas Loubere), anthropology (Ping Sun), and social psychology (Hsuan-Ying Huang). They pinpoint the role of commercial activities as vehicles to highlight human agency and diversity in China's transformations. The three articles-"China's Internet Finance and Tyrannies of Inclusion" by Loubere, "Programming Practices of Chinese Code Farmers" by Sun, and "Therapy Made Easy" by Huang-not only provide empirical studies of particular grassroots players or makers in China's e-commerce and digital economy, but also critically discuss their role and agency in negotiating the complicated network of power and knowledge to create a politics of difference in people's daily lives.

2016

From the time of their inception in 2001 China’s cultural industries were predominantly material, following the blueprint of industrialization (chanyehua)1 laid out in the national Five Year Economic Development Plans. A significant shift is now occurring, coincident with China’s most recent wave of economic transformation, influenced by the global policy movement known as The Third Industrial Revolution. This article investigates China’s aspirations to become an innovative creative nation focusing on specific implications of the government’s Internet+ policy within the 13th Five Year Economic Development Plan. It argues while a digital ecosystem is developing thanks to the relationship between government and China’s leading Internet companies, a number of challenges remain if China is to become an innovative creative nation. These include harnessing the creative talents of grassroots communities, dealing with the reality of an aging population, and finding a way to produce hybrid cultural products that the world market finds attractive. The borderless connectivity of the Internet, as well as the willingness of companies, both Chinese and Western, to compromise in the pursuit of profit promises a new dawn.

Global Policy, 2024

This article examines the evolving landscape of digital geopolitics, with a focus on the intensifying technological rivalry between the United States and China. It discusses how digital transformation is reshaping global power structures, influenced by and contributing to the bifurcation of the world through strategic initiatives and differing digital ecosystems. The article distinguishes digital geopolitics from conventional geopolitics and techno-nationalism on several fronts: the shift from hard power centred on territorial control to digital dominance; the transcendence of geographical boundaries that have conventionally defined geopolitical conflicts; the evolution from traditional political alliances to strategic technological partnerships; and the competition over setting international standards. Additionally, it addresses how corporate power plays a pivotal role in this new era, contributing to the shaping of the digital geopolitical landscape. Through case studies of Huawei and TikTok, this article demonstrates the influence of digital geopolitics on international business (and vice versa) as well as the intensified bifurcation of the digital ecosystems. The article concludes by arguing that digital geopolitics serves as both the by-product of and contributor to the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world in which China is encountering a new global order.