In this first installment of our two-part conversation with Professor Lizhi Liu, Todd sits down with one of the leading scholars shaping global understanding of China’s digital economy. Lizhi’s award-winning book, From Click to Boom, explores how political institutions and digital platforms co-evolved to fuel the world’s most sophisticated e-commerce ecosystem.
In this episode, Lizhi walks us through her academic journey, what sparked her interest in the political economy of tech, and the research that shaped her landmark book. She explains the scale and speed of China’s e-commerce boom, the institutional innovations that enabled it—from digital payments to logistics networks—and the profound social transformations that followed. We also take a deep dive into the rise of “Taobao Villages,” exploring how rural communities leveraged online commerce to reshape livelihoods and migration patterns.
Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of how China built the most advanced e-commerce market in the world—and why similar growth hasn’t taken place in Western economies.
Discussion Points (Part 1):
- Lizhi’s academic background and path into studying the political economy of Chinese tech
- What led to the research behind From Click to Boom
- The global scale of China’s e-commerce market and how it compares to the West
- Foundational institutions that unlocked China’s e-commerce growth: payments, logistics, governance mechanisms
- Broader social and economic impacts of digital commerce, including rural revitalization
- The rise and significance of Taobao Villages
What is The Negotiation?
Despite being the world’s most potent economic area, Asia can be one of the most challenging regions to navigate and manage well for foreign brands. However, plenty of positive stories exist and more are emerging every day as brands start to see success in engaging and deploying appropriate market growth strategies – with the help of specialists.
The Negotiation is an interview show that showcases those hard-to-find success stories and chats with the incredible leaders behind them, teasing out the nuances and digging into the details that can make market growth in APAC a winning proposition.