High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy

by Angela Huyue Zhang

Overview

In High Wire, Angela Huyue Zhang provides a comprehensive and sophisticated overview of how China regulates its enormous tech sector. By closely scrutinizing the incentives and interactions among the key players, Zhang introduces a dynamic pyramid model to analyze the structure, process, and outcome of China's unique regulatory system. She showcases the shrewd self-regulatory tactics employed by Chinese tech titans to survive and thrive in an institutional environment plagued by endemic fraud and corruption. She also reveals how the Chinese State has given a helping hand to digital platforms by offering them indispensable judicial support. Through a robust analysis of the tumultuous 2020-2022 tech crackdown, Zhang explores the model's profound impact on three vital pillars of Chinese platform regulation, including antitrust, data, and labor enforcement. As Zhang demonstrates, the tech crackdown has led to the private sector's retreat and the state's advancement in the tech industry. These regulatory shifts have also steered investors from consumer tech businesses toward hardcore technologies that are essential for China's bid to overtake the United States in innovation. More than just a study of China, Zhang offers a global perspective by comparing China's regulatory landscape with rapidly moving developments in the United States and the European Union. This comparative analysis reveals the shared regulatory challenges all face and sheds light on the future direction of Chinese tech regulation. Finally, she peers into the future of China's tech governance, specifically focusing on the burgeoning realm of generative artificial intelligence. Providing an unparalleled deep dive into China's rapidly evolving digital economy, High Wire is a must-read for those interested in how the manifold ways in which China regulates and governs its economy._

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197682265
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	568,805
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Angela Huyue Zhang is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong and Director of the Phillip K. H. Wong Center for Chinese Law. Zhang is widely recognized as a leading authority on Chinese tech regulation. She is the author of Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation (Oxford, 2021), which was named one of the Best Political Economy Books of 2021 by ProMarket. In fall 2024, Zhang will join the University of Southern California as a Professor of Law. Visit her website at AngelaZhang.net, and follow her on Twitter @AngelaZhangHK.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part I: Analytical Framework Chapter 1 Hierarchy Chapter 2 Volatility Chapter 3 Fragility Part II: Platform Regulation Chapter 4 Antitrust Regulation Chapter 5 Data Regulation Chapter 6 Labor Regulation Part III: Platform Self-Regulation Chapter 7 Platforms as Quasi-Regulators Chapter 8 Decentralizing Platform Governance Part IV: The Path Forward Chapter 9 Is China Exceptional? Chapter 10 Assessing the Impact Chapter 11 Looking Ahead: Regulating Generative AI

Editorial Reviews

"An indispensable study for those-most of us-who work in the field but to whom China, alongside the other two major regulatory players (the EU and the US), is the least accessible." — J. H.H. Weiler, University Professor, New York University School of Law

"A masterful analysis of the logic behind the Chinese government's regulation of the country's platform economy and how that regulation shapes the digital economy. Truly insightful, highly compelling, and a timely read by one of the foremost experts of the Chinese regulatory state." — Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations, Columbia Law School and author of Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology

"Zhang has a knack for sifting through disparate, seemingly random policy directives to find the unifying elements shaping China's world. This is on full display in High Wire. And it comes at a time when illuminating analysis on China's platform economy is in high demand." — Don Weinland, China Business and Finance Editor, The Economist

"Zhang's High Wire is the single best book for those who need to understand China's regulation of its tech markets - both what has happened, and what will happen. An essential and comprehensive resource in an area where overly simplistic understandings have too often led outsiders astray." — Tim Wu, Former Special Assistant to President Biden for Technology and Competition Policy, 2021-2023 and author of The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empire

"This well-researched and sharply analytical book on platform governance addresses some of the most critical issues of our time as geopolitical fault lines begin to form, with technology being a central domain of competition between the United States and China." — Cheng Li, Director of the Center on Contemporary China and the World, the University of Hong Kong & former Director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution

From the Publisher