S4, E11 Bringing Cyberspace Down to Earth in China: From smart-cities to village digital projects

'Bringing Cyberspace Down to Earth in China: From smart-cities to village digital projects'

Speaker: Hong Yu, Mayling Birney Scholar from Zhejiang University
Discussant: David Soskice, LSE
Chair: Laura Mann, LSE

What is Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice?

These podcasts are recordings from the Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking & Practice lecture series 2023/24, 2022/23, 2021/22 and 2020/21, a visiting lecture series coordinated by Professor of Development Studies, Professor James Putzel and Dr Laura Mann.

The Cutting Edge series provides students and guests with fascinating insights into the practical world of international development. Renowned guest lecturers share their expertise and invite discussion on an exciting range of issues, from climate change policy, to pressing humanitarian crises. In 2020, the series took place online, enabling us to host fantastic speakers from around the world and to stream the lectures on YouTube, opening them up to a global audience. Now we are back in person but still recording the sessions to share with our global audience.

SPEAKER 3
So hello everybody. Welcome back. This is a particular treat and pleasure for me today as a scholar of digital economy. We're very lucky to have Professor Yo Hong visiting us from Zhejiang University in China. She is a professor of media and international culture, um, at Georgetown University. But she did her PhD at in the communications from the University of Illinois. She is an expert on China's global digital footprint, and she's undertaken research on China's foreign aid in ICT, particularly in Africa, examining the motivations of foreign direct investment and networking, and studying what the impact is for regional economic development and South-South relations. She's recently co-edited a book, China's Globalising Internet History, Power and Governance, and she's currently working on a new book manuscript in Chinese called States and the Cyber Sphere History, Governance and Development. She's joining us here at the LLC as a mailing Bernie Scholar. Some of you might not know who but mailing was. She was a very dear colleague of ours in the International Development Department who is working on the comparative politics of China, and particularly looking at the dynamic relationship between the central state in China and local politicians and policy makers. And when I was reading the paper for tonight, I saw a lot of synergies with her work. So it's nice to kind of remember mailing, uh, today. Uh, so tonight you Hong is going to be talking about the kind of dynamic and hybrid nature of China's media landscape, showing how it's marked both by kind of state developmental strategies and political objectives to extend infrastructural power, but also by kind of private competition and entrepreneurship. She's going to demonstrate the kind of multiple functions of the digital infrastructure, not only its kind of economic infrastructure, but also it as a political infrastructure, as well as a kind of cultural infrastructure, and showing the ways in which private firms and governments blend these kinds of functions. I think her research really underscores the sense that we have to do careful, empirically grounded work on digital technologies in place of this kind of very technologically deterministic view, which kind of sees the outcomes of digitisation coming from the technologies themselves. She shows how much digitisation kind of plays out differently in different contexts, depending on political power, but also market power as well. In this way, we can have no better discussant than Professor David Soskice's. He's probably best known for his co-edited book, Varieties of Capitalism, which I know some of you read last term and has been a source of inspiration for many scholars. He's an emeritus professor in the government department, as well as the former director of the International Inequalities Institute at the LSC. He's published too many books and and papers to to name all of them. But his two recent books are one with Toba Iverson, Democracy and Prosperity Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century, as well as a book that I think is coming out this year with Wendy Karlin called Macroeconomics Institutions, Instability and Inequality. So, without further ado, I'd like us to welcome Professor Yu Hong to the podium, as well as to the LSE and to our department.

SPEAKER 4
Thank you. Um, so first of all, I will I would like to thank, uh, James. Laura and Tin will bring me here. Uh, it's really a great pleasure and also honour, um, to to be a visiting scholar at LRC. And it's also such a, um, precious thing to spend three weeks, like, on this very beautiful campus and to do some deep thinking and, uh, uh, intellectual interaction. So, um, uh, so what I'm going to talk about, uh, is something that, uh, um, that I draw from my working manuscript. Um, and I want to thank James for suggesting this very vivid, uh, title, uh, bringing cyberspace down to Earth. So what I'm going to do in this talk, I think we'll have four parts. First of all, I'm going to explain this, this microphone work. I think so, okay. Uh, so first of all, I'm going to explain the key concept. Um, uh, I want to explain what I do. What do I mean by cyberspace, um, and why I come up with, uh, alternative term, uh, cyber sphere. And then I want to explain my theoretical positioning. Um, and the in the third part of my talk, I will, uh, kind of cut to the chase. I will summarise my research outcome, uh, and then ultimately, hopefully, I can bring out some larger conceptual implications of this research. So let me first start with this old but still relevant story. Um, uh, as as you probably know, over the past 40 plus years, China, uh, reintegrated with the US led neoliberal global order. Uh, China participated in the global division of labour, and therefore China has become a part of this, uh, global economy. And, um, so, so, um, by doing so, by, uh, carrying out market reform and opening up, uh, China has achieved considerable success, uh, both in terms of domestic reforms, in terms of pushing forward new institutional reforms. And also externally, China has become an important member of the global community. Right. Uh, and maintaining a high level of interdependence with other parts of the world. So as of now, I think China's position is a position of paradox. Uh, on the one hand, China is entangled with this US led global economic system. But on the other hand, I think China is moving away and moving against these status quo. So I think, uh, as as we all understand, this is a time of great uncertainty, a great turbulence. Um, and during a time like this, it's very important to recognise the agency of states and, and societies. So, so this kind of, uh, an old and relevant story that set up the the backdrop of my ongoing research. So now let me explain why I'm so interested in the internet, why I'm so interested in the cyber cyberspace and, uh, cyber sphere, as I call it. Um, so the reason I'm interested in the internet is because increasingly, we notice that China's interaction with the world, uh, uh, or China's modernisation is carried out, uh, through the internet. Okay. Uh, China interact with the world through the through the internet. I think most of the audiences will agree with me on that. And also, China's modernisation has a very strong dose of digitisation. Okay. So because of that, the internet actually has become a very important, uh, variable in understanding, uh, China, the Chinese version of modernity. So, uh, but so therefore we need to clarify what do we mean by the internet? Okay. Uh, we understand that the internet is global in scope. Okay. Uh, but it's very important to, um, emphasise that the internet is not a virtual space. The internet is not a virtual space, although outside of physical space, it's not a virtual space out of the reach of social social forces. Okay. So, um, so I think it's very important to see internet as embedded in social relations and social forces. And, uh, because of that, the internet from the beginning of its, uh, uh, establishment is defined by different competing practices and norms. Okay. So therefore, uh, in order to kind of counter the OpenSea digital sublime, uh, digital utopianism, we might co-author and I come up with a new term called cyber sphere because we feel that oftentimes cyberspace is. Associated with a kind of digital sublime. But at the same time, we want to highlight three features of the internet. The first one is materiality, meaning that, meaning that no matter how a virtual we experience the the cyberspace. Um, actually the internet always have material groundings. If you think about the power power bases, if you think about all the material devices, you think about the 5G, the internet actually is never outside of physical space. Okay. So the materiality is a key feature of the US internet. And the second feature I think is relationality, meaning that the internet, as I mentioned, is defined by social relations. Um, in my view, the internet expands because, uh, people, uh, people take out, communicate communicative actions with each other. And as the communicative relations accumulate, internet will expand. Okay. Still, people communicate and interact, uh, from certain social positions and for certain social purposes. So therefore power always matters. Uh, power often um, uh, influence. Social relations and power always have the advantage in, in producing, uh, connections, in organising relations, in expressing certain ideas. So therefore cyberspace, uh, cyber sphere or the internet, it is defined by relational, uh, dimensions. Okay. So, so in my view, uh, what what I understood as the internet is not only a material thing, but also a communication, uh, kind of outcome. Okay. And the third feature of the internet, as we, uh, conceptualise it is, uh, is in terms of disagreement. Okay. So the internet is not a given thing, okay? It's nothing given. Actually, it is from the outset of, uh, internet development. Uh, the internet as an infrastructure, as an artefact is always defined by disagreement. People disagree on how intentionally developed. For what purpose? Uh, by whom? For for whose interest and how we should govern the internet. So the internet is always defined by disagreement. Um, so by these three dimensions, I think we get, get to, um, uh, the, the get getting, uh, to a much more fundamental level of how to understand, uh, cyber politics. Okay. So, um, because we have this conceptualisation, so we become unhappy with the, the photo I'm showing you. Okay. Because this photo looks very futuristic. It looks really, uh, immaterial. Okay, so I find another photo I think better represent my view about what cyberspace or cyber sphere is. So, as you can see, um, the the cyber sphere, actually today really, uh, has come to encompass all aspects of social life, uh, from economic transaction to information exchange, uh, to, uh, diplomatic relations. And I would even go further to claim that the cyber sphere has become the social life itself, uh, where a wide range of socio technical systems interconnect peoples interconnect things and channel flows. Okay. So I would even think that today we can call, uh, the social life as a media mediated social life. And the material foundation is the internet. So, um, so I think, um, now we kind of I have explained my key concept. And one more point I want to make is about the spatial reality of the so-called cyber sphere. Uh, when we think about cyber sphere, we often use the terms such as interconnected, interconnected cities, uh, because we use the internet to connect with each other. But how about vertical relations? How about hierarchical relations? Those hierarchical relations continue to exist, um, within the within cyberspace. I think, um, it's important to recognise that vertical relations continue to characterise the spatial reality of the cyber sphere. Um, so I, I use this photo to as a metaphorical imagery to, to illustrate what the cyber sphere really looks like. Um, I think this is a photo of, uh, of islands. Right? They are, uh, archipelagos. So, um, so they are little islands right above the sea. So you can you can compare these islands to digital platforms. Okay. So in the in our cyberspace, we actually we access the cyberspace through all kinds of platforms. And these platforms are just like the island that rise above the sea. But what is less visible is the roots of these platforms, meaning that for these platform economy to really operate, operate, uh, the platform needs to thrust its roots into local communities and local populations in order to extract value. Okay. Because we know the platform doesn't produce anything. Think about Facebook. Think about Twitter. They don't produce anything. What they do is that they will connect populations, connect things, and they will extract values from local community, local population so that the information centre and commodities can start to flow, flow in a variety of directions. Okay. So so I think it's very important to, to understand that the cyber sphere, on the one hand interconnected people and um, there are hubs and there are some nodes are more important. There are hubs and uh, the within the hubs there are different ties. Right. So there is a skewed skewness in terms of the distribution of degrees according to the network theory. But still the network, the web uh, term is quite horizontal of imagery. It's very important on top of that to understand that, um, apart from interconnectivity, we also need to understand that the cyber sphere actually has become, um, vertical. It has become, um, uh, hierarchical in the sense that digital assemblages cannot exist without, without, um, exploiting kind of, uh, local communities and local resources. So, um, so with this definition and with the explanation of the spatial reality, I think now I can, uh, I kind of provide, try to provide a metaphorical play within on which we can see China's position. Um, so I, I study China from three perspectives. One is China in the world. Uh, so basically, I think today's world. Today's global order is a global order defined by interconnectivity and communications. So China has merged itself into the into the flows, so to speak. But it's a hierarchical flow. It's not a horizontal flow. It's a hierarchical flow. And. So yeah, China has become part of these global flows. And and and the global flows is not um, it, it has directions, it has sort of structures. Okay. So that's China in the world. How we see China, how we understand China. It's not a isolated country. It is there. The what is happening inside of China oftentimes needs to define through these transnational perspectives. Okay. Um, so in other words, China is China's position, um, is located within these webs of relations. And the second dimension of my research really talks about China and the world, uh, basically talking about China, how China negotiating its position in the world. Okay. And the key key factor here actually are transnational corporations and transnational platforms, because these kind of institutions today actually organise resources and organise how resources are distributed and how they flow, uh, in what direction. Okay. So China, on the one hand, accommodate transnational corporations and transnational platforms. And on the other hand, China, Chinese state in particular, is trying to build its own steering mechanisms. And the last aspects of my interest is about China's world. In other words, China is globalising itself. So China is, um, exporting, uh, artefacts, exporting institutions and visions. So in order to understand the ramifications of these globalising China, I think it's very important to keep up with, uh, what is going on in the digital domain. Okay. So, um, so that's kind of my, uh, key concepts. Um, and I, um, now I can get to my second part, which is about the theoretical positioning. Um, and, um, when we study, uh, for, for those who know my work, I have a continuing interest in China's developmental stance towards and within the internet. And on this concept, I think, um, there are some very obvious conventional wisdom and, uh, some, some people, uh, see. China as a contender for hegemonic power. Okay, so basically, as another another contender for hegemonic power by exercising techno economic nationalism. Okay, so there is a realist narrative circulating to end this realist narrative basically frame China as another contender for power. I think it's, uh, these kind of storyline can often be, uh, find in news cover, news cover pages, uh, in commentary, commentary, commentaries, uh, another. So that's one type of narrative. Another type of narrative is to see China, uh, as an authoritarian regime disrupting the free flow of information in the, um, in the so-called borderless internet. And, uh, so, um, so I think there are there are two versions of dominant frameworks to talk about China and there is a third one which is on the intellectual left, I think increasingly, uh, on the intellectual, intellectual, intellectual left, people started to see China as a capitalist nation. Okay. To um, I think there is a growing concern that China really has become a capitalist society, uh, in the postmodern era. So altogether, I think, uh, combining what is going on on the intellectual right and what is going on on the intellectual left, I think, um, overall, the image, uh, the imagination of China is not quite positive. Uh, China is poised as is the dominant, uh, is is depicted as either wants to dominate or fracture the global order. So for me, my position is that, uh, these perspectives are all that valuable. They all have values, uh, but they are alternative explanations for me, uh, to explain what's going on right now. Uh, because they are insufficient, uh, for explaining what I observe. Uh, right now, uh, uh, as as China keeps transforming itself. So so let me share with you some of my observations in recent years. So first of all, I think, uh, from a communication perspective, um, China is not a giant cage. Uh, uh, instead of being an authoritarian cage, as this economist page, uh, show, China actually has a pretty hybrid system of communication. Okay. Um, and, uh, it follows neither the logic of statism nor liberalism. Different political economies coexist, collaborate and collide with each other, and the state control the so-called commanding heights sectors. And in this diagram it refers to, for example, telecom operators. The telecom operators is a sector where the state continue to dominate, uh, through the majority shareholders. Okay. And uh, and also if you think about medium production and especially journalist production, it's very much state dominated. Okay. Uh, but at the same time, the state has very much liberalised and decentralised other in last in less important sectors including Harwell manufacturing and uh, um to to to a different degree the cyberspace. Okay. So from so if we use communication industry as an example, uh, on this diagram, you will see that even, uh, the communication sector is not a monolithic whole. Actually, it is a hybrid economy. Uh, there are multiple political economies coexist and they create all kinds of frictions and but some but most of the time they coexist. Okay. So so I would argue that Chinese market economy, um, has been able to kind of developed by following multiple trajectories. And um, so, um, so from the state perspective, we can say that because the state oversee a hybrid economy. So therefore the state has an unusual capacity for self manoeuvring, okay. Especially when, uh, when, uh, the global market is not doing well. Okay. So that's one um. Dimension of kind of reality that I want to stress. The other dimension of the reality is the importance, the continuing importance of the party state. I think on the one hand, we study the economy, but at the same time, the parties, they continue to matter not only because of its state capacity, not only because of its, uh, political economy power, but also because of its political commitment. So I think it's still very important to understand the political philosophy and the political commitment of these party states. And, uh. Um, in recent years, what we see is that because, uh, the post model transformation has so much contradictory, uh, problems. So therefore struggles continues within the party state and beyond. So, um, during after the 2008 global economic crisis, I think, uh, non-Western experiences and memories and, uh, theories has been evoked in China, inside of China, within the leadership, uh, to to envision an alternative future. Okay. So what what is interesting to, to to me and to some of my colleagues is that the the 20th century revolution didn't go away. It's emerged, but then re-emerged. Okay. So recently I see this, um, uh, the director who is in charge of African issues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who made a statement saying that China is a developing country and developing country is an identity not measured in economic terms, but it's a political identity. So I think it's a very interesting to see that Chinese party state is renewing political commitment, uh, kind of inherited from the 20th century revolution. So so from there we see, uh, policy paradigm shift, uh, and rhetorical change transformations, uh, in particular, uh, since the 18th century, Central Committee, uh, 18th Party Congress. Um, the most notable rhetorical shift is these more confident, uh, proclamations, proclamation, proclamation to build a socialist modern nation in all, all around the way. And, uh, and the state also wants to build a so-called high quality development. So by high quality development, it definitely is not GDP driven, uh, development. It's a development, uh, more kind of people centric. So so, so on the empirical side, we do see the rhetorical shift and and the policy transformations as well. So but at the same time, of course, um, in practice, I think, um, the socialist claim to the, to the future sometimes yields to the hegemony of present conditions. Uh, especially in recent years. Uh, the economic downturn slowdown and, uh, the local local banks insolvency and uh, people, uh, are not fully employed. All these problems put constraint on what the government can actually do. So on the one hand, we do see that socialism as a rhetoric comes back. On the other hand, in terms of the practice. Uh, I'm not very sure how how how far it has deviated from the old path. Okay. So that's the second dimension of, uh, what's going on? Um, the third dimension, I think, has to do with the external environment. Um, and we know that in recent years, the US, China has engaged in, uh, technological, um, uh, kind of dealing. Okay. And what is interesting is that this linking is engineered by the US side. And, uh, so, um, so as a result, I think the Chinese leadership has been educated about the perils, follies and limits of capitalist integration. So I remember that before 2008, there is a talk about a dual ruling of the over the go, uh, between us and China. Uh, but I think that idea has appears to be really, um, unrealistic and, uh, um, so, so, so this the globalisation process actually, uh, is pushing Chinese leadership to recognise, uh, the limitations of a capitalist integration. So what? So what has happened is that if we look at, um, and some, uh, political. Political scientists actually has made predictions that the linking will actually encourage, uh, the smaller players, in this case, China, to, to seek for the further self-sufficiency and to cut off interdependence with the dominant one, meaning the United States. I think such a prediction probably is correct. If you if you look at the chipmaking industry, uh, China is pursuing self-sufficiency in terms of chip design, chip, chip production. Um, but such a prediction is also partial because China still embrace globalisation. Uh, but but the question becomes what kind of globalisation? Uh, one can even claim that maybe, um, it's time to think about, uh, globalisation refashioned. Okay. So, um, so this is a list of foreign foreign policies for foreign initiatives that China started on the digital domain. Uh, it's not very clear, but it's a it's all the, uh, the, the foreign policies, uh, related with the internet. And if you look at this list, you will see an implicit counter hegemonic agenda. Okay. So I think so for China, I think on the one hand it is embracing globalisation. But on the other hand, a right question to ask is to what extent China can refashion globalisation. So here is my puzzle. Um, apparently, views about the nature of Chinese society has been highly polarised. Okay. And there is a clear dichotomy between Chinese official discourse and outside discourses. And the question becomes why? And so and and how to explain the implicit contrast between the conventional wisdom that I outlined and what we experience inside of China. Okay. And why? So these prompt me to reposition myself theoretically, especially with regard to the state. Um, I use state theories, a variety of state's theories. So what I in my previous work I have talked about the capitalist logic of the state. I have attended the transnational orientations of the state, meaning that the state internationalised itself internationalised its capacity in order to serve business, transnational business needs. And also I studied, uh, state business relations, how state business relations sometimes fused, sometimes, um, at odds with each other. And now I think I need to add one more elements, which is to appreciate, uh, socialist state formation beyond, uh, what we often say. Uh, what we often, uh, kind of label Chinese state as a pragmatic developmental state. So I think it's time to appreciate, put these, um, dimensions into the into the, into the configuration in order to understand some of the Chinese state's behaviours. Otherwise, it's impossible to explain. So, um, so here are a list of theoretical frameworks that we can draw from. So for example, if you look at, uh, digital capitalism in China, uh, basically this literature sees China as part and parcel of global trends. So digital capitalism is a global and universal trend and China is part of it. Okay. So again China is just part and parcel of it. Uh, China probably follow certain trajectories. But ultimately China is becoming a one variety of digital capitalism. Okay. And the uh, the second one is new Gramscian approach, which really focus on how the state internationalised itself in response to the changing requirements of capitalism and the geopolitical economy approach, uh, focuses put attention to put attention on contestation and contention. So they study kind of geopolitical struggles, rivalries. So, so, so what I'm showing you is that there are a variety of theoretical frameworks available to, to study, uh, the nature of the state, uh, in a complex, uh, situation of political economy. But I want to add one more, uh, I think there is a small group of literature which really talk about Chinese state as actually existing socialist state, but it's not glorifying these socialist state. It put a lot of focus on the ongoing struggles, uh, internal struggles, uh, within the party state and beyond. Okay, so that's kind of my new thinking. Uh, I'm kind of add one more layer to my. Pre-existing theoretical framework. So now, um, I can get to the empirical part. Um, so I think based on what I understand about the cyber space, the cyber sphere, and based on what I understand about the Chinese state, we can ask some new questions. Uh, one question is that given the cyber sphere is not given a given that the cyber fear is not God made right, it's constituted by human actions, then we need to ask, what does it mean when we have a state like digitisation? What how does the Chinese state try to, um, kind of build up its own version of cyber sphere? Okay. So I think that's an important question. Uh, the second one is that, uh, given that the Chinese state claims to build a socialist modernisation, uh, to what extent China mitigate the internalised telos of capitalist modernity and advancing socialism at home? Okay, so I, I got these questions as my guiding questions. So, um, so the the general summary of the research is that, uh, in China right now, there are every day there are many future oriented projects going on. They are oftentimes digital projects. Okay. And um, and these digital projects are very good location to observe the, the interaction, the interaction between the state and the political economy. Okay. So what I find is that, uh, the, the party states and its guiding ideology, um, is, is entangled and by extension, contaminated by digital capitalism. So as a result, if we look close up at, at these, uh, digital projects, we will find that these digital projects basically unfold as interactive spaces between capitalist and non capitalist forms. So, so I think it's too early to to say Chinese digital future is a capitalist future. Uh, because all these projects seems to kind of, um, uh, kind of, um. I stand between this line between capitalist and non capitalist. So, um, so let me give you two case studies. The first one is Digital Village. Um, as we know, um, uh, live streaming is really big in China. Okay. And, um, uh, and the short video platforms nowadays has become the ground zero for public attention. So anyone from China will tell you how many hours they spend on kind of revealing the short videos from the short video platforms. So short video platforms actually has become a very important infrastructure, not only for urban population but also for rural society. And, um, so here, um, it becomes an interesting, um, dilemma. Uh, so for the local, for, for any locality, um, in order to gain any visibility, you have to put yourself on such platforms. Otherwise your local identity will be easily kind of swallowed up by torrents of information flows. Okay. So from the locals perspective, they want to ramp up localised cultural and commodity production for channels, local marketing and distribution. So if you go to any county government that what they are doing is to, for example, encourage, uh, county level media stations to produce, uh, short videos to put on, uh, kind of, uh, some social media platforms in order to gain local, uh, uh, channels local popularity. Okay. So, so it becomes, uh, a developmental effort. If you want to develop as a, as a place, you have to gain local visibility. So, so from the local perspective, the idea is to drum up these capacity for producing content to producing a commodities that can be sold on, uh, online. Okay. And from the platforms perspective, from those social platforms perspective, they actually also need, uh, local support because as I mentioned, they are just the platforms. They are intermediary, they don't produce anything, so they need to constantly extend their lines of commodification. Uh, they need to commodify not only Labour, but also information, but also sentiment as well as, uh, services and and products. Okay. So therefore plan platforms, social media platforms oftentimes wants to tap into local support. And they want to build localised supply chains. Okay. So so these um mutual needs uh, synthesised and uh, creates a scenario where local government become a very important partner for social media and platforms. So, um, so what I find in my fieldwork is that, um, some, um, in many small towns, um, uh, kind of, uh, local government help the social media platforms to localise themselves. And so some, uh, some gateways, some, some, uh, institutions are being created. Okay. So one institution is, uh, a live streaming school. And on the left hand side, these live streaming school, uh, is based in, uh, how do you say, uh, in a remote area in Zhejiang province. And it is not a coastal part of Zhejiang. It's an interior part of Georgia. In this region, there is not much industrial assets. There is not there is not much international trade. So the development is relatively, relatively backward. Okay. And what happened is that during the pandemic, the peasants in that region, uh, face really bleak business situation. They cannot sell their fruits. So the government, local governments stepped up and uh, and collaborated with Alibaba to set up these livestreaming school to train peasants to, uh, to, to talk in front of the camera. Okay. So the idea is to turn peasants into communicative labour, okay. To sell the produce. So that's, uh, so and a material building is being set up. So it's not just about communicating communication, it's not just about interaction, but also some material establishment was being set up. So this building is a testimony to this state effort. And uh, and what is interesting, what I find interesting is that, uh, this building actually extends the, the state's functionalities. It extends the state space, okay. The state not only set up the school, but also set up a trade union for, for these live streamers. So the state is expanding itself by helping the platforms. Okay. And, uh. Um. And then later on. Um, the the the government not only set up these schools for training, but also set up an industry, a localised pet pack, caring industry. So it, it, uh, it enabled some factories to, to manufacture locally and therefore it's live streamers can can sell it, can market it uh, across the web. Okay. So so this is one example where, um, the state kind of worked with the platform to set up to extend the platform by setting up a training program, by setting up a school, actually. And the second example is. A digital park also located in a remote area in a mountainous area. And this area again economically is not very advanced. Actually, it's quite isolated mountainous areas. So what the local government is, was doing is to set up this economic park economic zone to host, um, internet celebrities for doing e-commerce. Okay. And the idea is that, uh, if if the park can group, um, a good number of internet celebrities, the, the local people can better sell local speciality goods. Okay. So, um, so this industrial park itself is interesting because it is the land was owned by the local government, by the local government. But the operation, the the daily management, um, is, is run by private entrepreneur. So the private entrepreneurs actually have dual identity. On the one hand it is a he is a private entrepreneur. But on the other hand he he is also affiliated with a party. So he helps the party state to extend its functionalities into, uh, into economic management. So, so these um, so again, these uh, industrial park is about specialised specialised live broadcasting activities. So the okay, so the idea is to upgrade uh, the, the, the, the, the marketing influence and also to upgrade the supply chain. So the third case actually is, uh, another one about, uh, uh, it's an e-commerce enterprise. So the e-commerce enterprise, um, is really fascinating because, uh, it's a it's a e-commerce company that tries to help, uh, peasants to sell their goods. And the peasants, oftentimes they don't know, um, how to upload image and, uh, and a and a and a and they don't have a commercial standards to judge whether these produce is good enough for supermarket sales. Okay. So this, um, e-commerce company, uh, basically did a lot of cultural work and legwork, uh, to educate, uh, local villagers how to do e-commerce online. Okay, so I think I'm a little, uh, behind my, um. My my my schedule. I think we have, uh, so. Okay, so that's, um, some cases about the Digital Village and another one I will be, uh, uh, brief about. This is a city break in. I'm from Hangzhou, and anyone who visited Hangzhou knows that it's a city. That host Alibaba is a headquarter city for Alibaba. Okay, so Hangzhou is also well known for its digital governance program and the most well known artefacts for Digital City. Smart city is this is this technical architecture called City Brain. Um, so if you look at the right hand side is a technical map of the city brain. It looks really abstract. Okay. So the basic idea is that the the computer will take data from different departments of the government and also take real time data, uh, gathered from, for example, traffic lights or from, uh, sensors that scattered around the city in order for the government to make better decisions. So this city brain has been applied in a variety of areas, including traffic management, including um health, health care, uh, and also tourist management, etc.. So so where does the city brain actually is located? Actually it is located in this part. Um, so so again, it's a collaboration between the government and the business. Okay. The government provide the land and uh, uh, and uh, it started it created a business ecosystem. So Alibaba is the Dragon Heart company. Uh, and uh, Alibaba provides the computation computational capacity, and then a whole range of small local companies come to support, uh, becoming part of this ecosystem. So what is interesting is that by offering the land, uh, the Hangzhou municipal government is able to creating a new ecosystem, business, business, business ecosystem, uh, from scratch. And, uh, and most of the, uh, procurement, uh, the most of the business, uh, orders go to these local companies. So the government basically create a supply chain, uh, from the local companies. And, uh, so this diagram basically shows how the city brain operate, uh, as a social, um, system rather than as a technical system. So the city brain is a is a basically it's an architecture. Okay. So on the left hand side, the local government offer data on the on the right right hand side, the tech companies offer computational capacities. And also Alibaba is responsible for creating a business ecosystem. And, uh, what is interesting is that, uh, the city brain is actually not managed by Alibaba. The state, uh, kept Alibaba away from managing the city brain. The state created a joint venture, um, a state controlled joint venture to to operate the city brain basically to protect the data to to protect the interest, uh, of the government in the name of the interest of the public. And the third component I think it's really worth mentioning is the participation of traditional media. Why? Because the City brain is about, uh, governing the society from remote, from from remote from distance. Right. So, uh, I can I can know where the pandemic, uh, is happening by collecting data on everyone's health situation, health conditions. That's how the city brain function. But this kind of centralised control oftentimes will have a lot of bugs. So it creates a chaotic situation where there are so much complaints during the pandemic. So people make phone calls and they often make phone calls to to traditional local newspaper. So as a result, um, this whole system becomes a more, um, kind of inclusive, uh, in the sense that traditional media and become part of these, uh, social technical system rather than being excluded from it. Okay. So. So with these two, um, case studies. Now, let me draw some conceptual, uh, conclusion. Um. So I think, first of all, um, it's important to transcend the networked and hierarchical binaries when we think about the developmental politics of the internet. Okay. Um, oftentimes when we think about internet because it's, it's connecting people. So, uh, if there's any politics with the internet, it is a matter of exclusion. Disconnecting. But I think, uh, there is also a hierarchical dimension of the internet politics. Okay. And again, the cyber sphere as we conceptualise it is a combination of materiality and communication. As cyber sphere expand, uh, it is enriched by capital intensive new technologies. And it's structured by digital platforms that form relational archipelagos with one one another. Just as important, I think it's important. It's, um, uh, it's crucial to emphasise that, uh, the cyber sphere cannot survive without thrusting rules into specialised and often territorial sized domains. And so therefore, local governments and social actors often become indispensable partners in constituting reconstituting the cyber sphere from outside. And, uh, new gateways, uh, from, uh, from the live streaming, live streaming schools to the city brain. Uh, originally external to the cyber sphere are set up to channel, uh, labour information into the web based circulation. So, so the states and all kind of social actors actually are part of the reconstruction work of the cyber sphere. So this brings to the second point of about the Chinese state. I think we need to see Chinese state as a communicative actor. It's not just about, uh, uh, kind of. It's not. It's not just about. It's not just the economic actor, but also and it's not only a political actor, but also a communicative actor because the Chinese state, uh, participated in a play, a primary role in reconstituting the cyber sphere from the outside. And, uh, oftentimes the Chinese state is able to prioritise local perspectives. So on the one hand, the state has to make sure that, uh. The politics of scales and the visibility. Um. Uh, continue to, um, uh, continues, uh, because the government need the support of the platforms, but only on the other hand, the state apparently is prioritising local needs of the local community. Um, so, um, so I want to, um, uh, and these talk with these quotes from our recent special issue. Uh, I think it's, uh, when we study China as an ongoing phenomenon, it's imperative to resist the temptations of reductionism and linearity on the one hand, and the trapping of geopolitical rhetoric on the other hand. Uh, living histories, functioning institutions, and acting subjectivities constitute the context within which China acts, communicates, and interacts. So with that, I will end my talk, and, uh, I will really, uh, hope to have more interaction and, uh, with the audience. Thank you. Okay? Okay.

SPEAKER 5
Can you? Can you hear me? All right. Okay. Uh. Right. I'm want, first of all, to say that's one of the most exciting talks I've heard for a long time. And there are a huge number of questions and thoughts which it should be raising with you about about how we think about China, uh, how we think about, uh, relations between America and China, Germany and China and and so on. Uh, I'll come to the. I'll come to that in a in a minute. I do, I want to say also that, uh, Yu Hong has a very, very sophisticated view about the role of the internet and, uh, in general, um, of what she calls. Very nicely the cyber sphere, indicating that we shouldn't think of the digital world as a sort of as something given out there, which is just determined by by people writing programs. We should think of the digital world as being wholly integrated into the way in which we which we live, and the influences going both ways around. Um, I think what I find most, um. Most exciting about. Um. What you were saying is how. The various ways in which, uh, you can use the internet and digital space to. Move into all sorts of different areas of the Chinese economy, but above all to move into smaller, smaller towns and cities and so on. So I was thinking about a lot of the things in the lecture is about levelling up. So we have the debate here about levelling up. And as you know, we have an amazingly competent, brilliant conservative government with many, many ideas about how to solve the problems of levelling up. And a lot of them are giving £5 million to a town to build 1 or 2 more big supermarkets in the centre. This is this the the, the approach which you're talking about is at a really superior and interesting level. And um, I'll, I think it's something which we, we should really think about a lot about what you've been, what you've been saying. Now the second thing then comes on to, uh, what should the relations be? You sort of. I sort of feel, uh, something like, you know, these are really, really stupid kids in the playground. Uh, the United States on one hand, and China and the Chinese, China on the other hand, just sort of behaving in a stupid way in relation to each other. So you could ask the question, what would happen if the American government says, uh, look, okay, it's been a little bit stupid vast to have this protectionist policy and try and clamp up. On the free flow of information between American and and China. Why don't we go to a world where Chinese students can come and study again in the in the United States and to get get PhDs and so on in the, in the sciences and bring those back to China. Why can't we let, uh. Chinese companies have access if they if they buy it to developments which are going on in, in, in the, in the West. And in exchange for that, we want you to stop talking about Taiwan, because that's just an explosive issue and a very dangerous issue to play around with. And then the we would say to the Chinese, listen, you're really, really open to do what you want as far as technology is concerned. Talk about de-risking. And de linking is stupid. Uh, you just try and establish normal relations. Now, if you think through what the problems of that are, I mean, there are obvious problems in how you actually make sure that both sides go along with that. But I really work on, um, I really work on the, the auto industry and a lot, a lot of that is to do with, uh, relations between the big German companies and the Chinese industry. Uh, and China has got two really, really, really effective. A private, privately owned Chinese companies. One is BYD. And the other is Geely. And they are, but they've both been very successful. They haven't got they haven't gone up to a German type of level, but they've been very successful at what they do. There are many things which they could. There are many aspects of technology which they could well import from the, from the west, from, from, from German companies, if they were allowed to do that. German companies, uh, who on the whole produced the sort of top level of luxury luxury cars. They have a huge desire to be able to sell properly and without any constraints in China, and that would then solve a whole range of different of different problems. Now, in addition to all that, there is a we've got into a crazy situation about macroeconomics and slow growth in both in China and to a lesser extent in the in the United States. And I think a lot of Macroeconomists would say that there are actually relatively straightforward answers to this, one of which would be to develop a really effective system of social welfare in China and make sure make sure that people have got adequate pensions, because if they have had adequate pensions, Chinese families, particularly in the peasant families, wouldn't feel the need to spend to save massive amounts of money in order to meet their their pensions. They would then spend more money on consumer goods and so on. We could. This is really simply to say. Really, if I may say, stimulated by by your really marvellous lecture. Uh, here, here are two incorrect. Two huge countries. And we can add in Germany as a third one. With incredible capacities. And what we've always learned in economics is free trade makes a great deal of sense. So if the Chinese are Chinese, can't can't export things to the United States. Uh, because because there's certainly a whole lot of things which the sophisticated things Chinese can produce relatively cheaply. That's really saying, saying to Americans, why are you why are you looking a gift horse in the mouth if the Chinese are prepared to sell, to sell, sell things to you cheaply? Why do you stop American? Why do you stop stop Americans from buying them? That should be absolute common sense. Anyhow, we've got into this really unfortunate situation at the moment, and, um, I hope that this talk will have made people think, think through what are the things you can, what are the things you can do? And this notion of integrating. Across towns and cities. What the role of the state in the form of city governments, county governments and in bigger places, municipal, municipal governments combined combining what they do with the private sector. Makes, it seems to me a great deal of great deal of sense. So I thought that was very fascinating anyway. Terrific.

SPEAKER 3
So thank you very both very, very much. I thought that I also agree that that was a really wonderful and interesting presentation, both about the nature of the Chinese state, but also about the nature of digitisation. So I'm very excited about what kinds of questions we're going to get from the audience. Uh, I think we have a microphone upstairs and downstairs today, so feel free to raise your hand wherever you are. I'm going to have a look behind the screen. Do we have any brave people? We have a brave person at the back. Is it Joel? It's Joel.

SPEAKER 6
Hi. Um. Hi. Thank you for the very interesting presentation. Um, I've got two questions, if I may. So, um, first question. So how has presidency's crackdown on the tech sector in China affected these digitalisation efforts, especially in the recent years? And my second question is about this whole idea of, you know, using the cyber sphere to build an inclusive society and to inform policy decisions like with the city brain. So have there been any concerns, especially from the public, about personal privacy and data protection, and how does the Chinese government go about addressing such concerns? Thank you.

SPEAKER 3
Okay, I see another question in the back row. Um, did you have your hand up? No. Okay. Oh, there is a question right here in the middle. So we'll take a couple of questions, if that's okay. So the lady in the sort of nice white shirt. Pale, pale grey shirt.

SPEAKER 7
Hello. Thank you very much for your talk. Um, I was wondering, you mentioned about the different, um, industrialisation process that there are in specifically like the city brain and the, uh, e-commerce platforms, etc.. It all looks very, very much inward industrialisation. How could China utilise these technologies to a more outward looking industrialisation and play a bigger role in the global forces that you mentioned?

SPEAKER 3
Okay, two great questions. So Yu. Would you like to answer them? And David, if you have comments to your very welcome.

SPEAKER 4
Okay, so, uh, for the first question, how, uh, the presidency is popping up, the the tech industry, is that the first question? Okay. I think, um.The government. Definitely. Um, is, uh, making good use of industrial policies. Um, and, uh, and it's not something new. I think the industrial policy has been going on for many years. Uh, especially since 2000, 2006. I remember because at the beginning of China's reform, China, uh, outsourced its weakness to external, uh, vendors. Okay, China is not very good at, uh, for example, uh, trip making. So China buy trips from, from outside. So therefore China built up these systematic dependence on companies like Qualcomm, Cisco, etc.. But after the 2006, uh, if my memory serves me correct, I think there is a emphasis on indigenous innovation. Um, so no, um, kind of research institute and university labs are being set up, um, to, to do more, uh, kind of ground zero type of research. So, um, so I think, uh, the, the, the, the, the worsening, um, external environment basically accelerating, um, the efforts, uh, that's for sure. So I would agree with, um, people who are in political science who made the prediction that, um, the thinking imposed by the United States will push the smaller player, in this case, China, to seek more self-sufficiency, especially in those extremely vulnerable, um, areas. Um, but at the same time, I don't think that China is closing up its doors. It's embracing globalisation. So therefore we see, uh, their inroads. We see China is trying to reach re specialised globalisation. So it's not just about opening up toward uh towards for example, western capital, but also tries to seek collaboration with the global South. Um, so I think it's not about, um, uh, closing up, uh, self-sufficiency in the sense of closing up. Uh, it's a matter of, um, kind of building up a kind of, uh, um, fixing the weakness, the vulnerability, and at the same time kind of reconfiguring, uh, China's opening up, uh, dimensions. So find more partners, external partners, rather than just relying upon 1 or 2 countries. So I think that's something pretty clear. But other than that, I think you have to be more microscopic to to follow what exactly is going on. Yeah. So the second question is about, uh.

SPEAKER 3
About privacy, I think, and sort of collection of data and whether.

SPEAKER 4
Oh, the privacy. Okay. Uh, yeah. The privacy is a sensitive topic. Uh, I mean, it's a sensitive issue. Um, so, uh, I think the city brain, uh, bothers people like, uh, during the pandemic. I think there's on the one hand, uh, like, we know, uh, in China, we use a mobile phone to to record our health. Right. So if you are healthy, uh, the your mobile phone will show green colour. And then if you caught the disease, your, your your phone will give you a red colour. Okay. So that's how this kind of remote control is, uh, putting people into different categories. And so the governance is not about governing the real people. It's about governing. Uh, in really abstract terms. People turn into statistics, I think, okay, and into categories. So, you know, you are being put into different categories. And if you are accidentally put in a category of, of risk, then you will be, for example, put in uh, quarantine. Uh, so, so, so during that process, that experiment, kind of large scale, uh, kind of public health experiment, I think, uh, not only the government but also the public realise that, uh, technological solutions always have limits. Okay. And, uh, because some stupid mistakes are being made. Uh, for example, I, for example, I just work a few steps away from my home, then the, the, the tracking system will identify, identify me. Like leaving the city. So, so because there are so many, um, so many mistakes being made so accidentally, we find that traditional media, which has been announced as dead, uh, kind of renewed their, uh, lifespan, like traditional media, local newspaper, uh, which relies upon advertising revenue. But the advertising revenue in recent years plunged just like in the West. And what what I find is that all these community newspapers actually find a new obligation. They find a very strong ties with local community because they are the ones who got the phone calls when things goes wrong. So. So the city brain is a technological solution for social governance. But what what is interesting, uh, that I want to, uh, demonstrate is that ultimately a local newspaper become part of this, uh, technological solution. So instead of new technology replacing old technology, old media, actually, these two types of media co-exist because they have different capacities to connect with society. Okay. So I think going back to your question about privacy, um, uh, by and large, I think Chinese public Chinese people are less sensitive about privacy because of the collective way of living. So, uh, but at the same time, uh, the middle class, uh, in China definitely are aware of that concept. And, uh, um, and there is tons of complaints. So, so for the city brain to, uh, to keep functioning, um, I think, uh, both the company and the government needs to, uh, put its power into the cage. So it's not about kind of always unleashing, uh, the technological freedom, but also put the technological freedom, uh, under certain type of certain kind of legal, uh, constraint. So, so I yeah, I think privacy is not a, uh, it's not a everyday vocabulary in, in Chinese context. Uh, just like rice. Uh, I was talking to my colleagues at LSE like he was talking about rice. But I think in China we don't talk about rice that often. We talk about responsibilities a lot. So. So when, when it comes to privacy. Um, yeah. I think people don't talk about this that much, but I think the awareness is rising for sure. Yeah. Because of the, uh, ironically, because of the introduction of, uh, architectures like this integrate.

SPEAKER 3
So there was also a final question that was about the kind of your talk was a lot about inward industrialisation, and it was a question about the kind of outward relationships.

SPEAKER 4
Yeah, that's a very interesting question. I actually know very little. I know that Alibaba has been expanding, uh, globally, for example, in into the Middle East. Uh, and also there are uh, business deals in Europe, uh, European countries and in South. Southeast Asia. I think Alibaba and Tencent also have a huge market share. And um, and uh, I think, uh, I don't know, like I think they probably do localisation and uh, they probably work with local partners. Uh, but I'm not sure. I think oftentimes, uh, a project like a city brain is a state project, even in countries like Indonesia. So, um, so, um, I think, uh, it's a matter of, uh, uh, who are in the driver's seat. Um, and, uh. Yeah. So I don't think I have sufficient information to answer that question, but I think that's very interesting to to, uh, keep following about, like, the digital footprint, um, overseas.

SPEAKER 3
So, David, did you want to add anything or should I take more questions? I have a lot of questions. So I'm kind of hoping that there aren't that many questions, but I also hope that there are. Okay, so we have I see one question here. And then Max at the back. Anybody upstairs? Go for it.

SPEAKER 9
Hi. Um, my question was about you touched briefly on this idea that you think that the digital space or the. Sorry, the the the cyber sphere is not. Uh, the jury's still out on whether it's kind of managed in a socialist or in a capitalist way, and that you wouldn't like to fall one way or another, that maybe this is something, a judgement that we can make in a decade's time or two decades time. But it seemed a little bit from the case studies that, uh, particularly the ones where, um, rural, uh, rural vendors and peasants and were being kind of taught and instructed in kind of digital infrastructure that these were ways of integrating them into a kind of a broader capitalist system. Right. In a way that that this kind of digital infrastructure is allowing for a new and novel ways and through the state is kind of playing an interesting role, maybe in these JVs that you mentioned or through state capital, by giving land and other things. But it strikes me as a bit on the state capitalist side. Not not so much. I don't I don't really see immediately where the socialism comes in. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that. I understand that it's been kind of the it's been important in the discourse the last 5 or 7 years, this return to socialism. But where do you see it in this kind of digital space?

SPEAKER 3
Okay. And the question at the back from Max. Who's the gentleman with the long, curly blonde hair?

S11
Hello. Thank you for the interesting lecture. I had kind of a related question in a way, I think. I was just wondering if you could talk a bit about the relationship between the Chinese government and some of those big tech companies like Alibaba, Tencent, buy dance, that sort of thing. So about that relationship and then what the effects of that relationship are. Thank you.

SPEAKER 3
Okay. Great. Actually, I'm going to take one more question from James in the front here. And again, if you have a question, you can put your hand up. And I'm looking out for you guys.

S12
I mean, thank thank you both. It's really interesting. About 7 or 8 years ago, I was in China and had a visit to this place where, you know, claims to produce 70% of the world's socks, for instance, in the biggest commodity markets that you could find anywhere. And we had a talk with the with the city government about the whole development of business in commodity, small commodity trade. And what I found very interesting was that they were really pushing and encouraging e-commerce, but they necessitated those who establish an e-commerce business to have a physical location. In the city. They were promoting e-commerce in a way that did not put a heavy tax burden on these these Start-Ups and these the, the these commodity producers. But their thinking was that by having a physical location, they could be taxed in the future. So this is a kind of state, you know, um, I think a very responsible kind of approach to e-commerce by the, by the state that could be learned even here, could be learned from. Um, but I'm just wondering how generalised is this? Was this just something very specific in you? Was as part of the thinking of this specialising, you know, the.

SPEAKER 3
Okay. We'll take those.

SPEAKER 4
Questions. Okay. Um, I think the first question is a really good question. Um, so I want to say that. Given my observation, I don't think that Chinese state wants to develop the cyber sphere without the support of capital. I think the Chinese way of developing digitisation and modernisation relies on capital. So, um, so does that mean you utilising capital? Does that mean is capitalism? So I think that's for me is uh, there is a kind of there is a bridge that needs to be made. Um, so I think people are aware that when capital predominates, all kind of capitalist capitalistic symptoms will emerge, including labour exploitation. Like if you go to, uh, any digital kind of so-called digital sweatshops, uh, the people work long hours and they are being exploited. Right? Um, so, um, so all these symptoms are, uh, observable in China, including labour problems, including, um, the, the business kind of endless pursuit of profits. Um, but at the same time, I think it's very important to go back to the, the, the diagram that I draw, like the hybrid. Uh. Uh, landscape. The the, um, the hybrid system, uh, where different types of political economies coexist. So I think what I observe is that on the micro level, on the micro policy level, the state is, on the one hand, co-opting these giant, these giant companies, but on the other hand, uh, punish these companies, uh, by kind of forcing them to, um, to, to uh, uh, kind of, uh, uh, uh, disassemble, like they don't want to grow too big, um, including Alibaba. And so, so there is, uh, efforts on the regulatory level to, to regulate these giant players. And, um, and then on the more kind of institutional level, I think these companies, in order to survive and thrive in China, they somehow have to take up political responsibilities. So they do, um, uh, kind of political. Um. Tasks for the government, including developmental projects. So I think somehow some, um, some, um, kind of trade offs are being made. Um, on the one hand, uh, these companies remain to follow the financial, uh, the financial kind of, um, signals. Right. They need to keep their balance sheets looks really nice, uh, etc.. And, and these companies are doing they are, um, um, stock market listed. And on the other hand, um, they, they also fulfil, uh, certain political, um, obligations, including the, the poverty alleviation, um, obligations. So, um, so I think that's. Yeah. So I think you're right. Uh, if we look, uh, if we, uh, kind of interpret the, the empirical, uh, evidence that I show, uh, one can also argue that it seems that the local governments are doing are doing the servitude for the tech companies because the local government actually is making it more convenient for these tech companies to extract value from the local community. Um. But then I'm thinking, what are the options? What are the alternatives? Um, so I think, uh, given the fact that China is already part of this, uh, web of interconnected cities, um, in order for any developmental project to be, to be to be, uh, um, uh, uh, have any viability, uh. It seems necessary to to be to participate in the platform economy only if you kind of you, um, back away from the platform economy. So I think be part of the platform economy seems to be a necessary necessity for a locality. Okay. And then, um, otherwise you are isolated because the information flow determines, uh, people's determines people's attention, determines where they spend the money. So, um, so I'm debated, uh, for sure. Uh, but I do see that, um, as a whole, there is a very genuine effort to kind of uplifting, um, kind of backward regions and, uh, and, and a lot of these efforts are not capitalistic driven. They are they are not for the sake of enlarging the capital. Okay. Yeah. And, uh, then, um.

SPEAKER 3
So then there was a question about state business relations between the Chinese state and tech companies, which I guess is kind of similar to that.

SPEAKER 4
Yeah, I think I answered that question. Uh, and the third question, James question, I think, um, I think, uh, I agree that maybe there is a state logic of taxing to keep the e-commerce at a place where the physical markets are. And there is also a platform logic because platforms are like they are like colonisers. They they have to colonise on, on a place where there are a lot of resources. So I visited a remote village where the trade, uh, tea trade actually is, uh, Asian trade. Um, and uh, what is interesting is that live streamers, they set up their, uh, live e-commerce on that traditional market because they can get, um, uh, immediate access to the production. Okay. Uh, so, so I don't think the platform can exist alone. Like, if if we don't cooperate, the Facebook has to go bankrupt tomorrow. Like, if we all, uh, kind of cancel Facebook. We have to the Facebook has to close. So I think the platform on the one hand are very powerful. It's a very powerful redistributing, uh, mechanism. But at the same time, it cannot live without the cooperation of the traditional community and the population. So I think yeah. So that's I think there's a general pattern. Yeah.

SPEAKER 3
Super, super interesting. Um, do we have more questions from students? Were you guys going to let me ask some questions? Okay, well, I have a few questions that I would like to ask. Um, the first question is kind of related to the city brain and. You know, Joel asked the question about people's privacy, and from your answer, I got a sense that the government might be aware with problems with this kind of mode of governance, and that got me thinking about the patchy nature of the internet, the fact that these kinds of networks might not pick up everybody's data, there might be kind of missing populations, there might be mistakes in this system. And in the UK recently we've had this post post office scandal, you know, where a technical system, there are all sorts of problems and there was absolutely no transparency and acknowledgement of these kinds of mistakes in the system. So I wondered, first of all, if you could tell us how reflective is the Chinese state of the kind of patchiness of the data that they might be collecting? And how proactive and thoughtful are they about thinking about the incompleteness of the data? Because this is a state, this isn't a private company. You'd think a state would be interested in capturing the full picture of Chinese society. My second question is related to the other case study, and I've been struggling to remember the name of the researcher, but we had a gender a digital gender workshop last year, and there was somebody who was presenting a similar case in China of these training sessions for people, I don't know what you call them, stream live streaming people, streamers. And from that discussion, it seemed to be like a very big gap between the expectations people have and the reality of being successful. And I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the the challenge of the expectation reality gap. You know, whether the Chinese state is worried about kind of projecting these very hyped up visions of what the internet can offer people versus the kind of reality of how difficult it is for people to make it in that kind of world. Um, are there any other questions I can ask? Was it you? Was it?

SPEAKER 4
I was at your workshop.

SPEAKER 3
I'm so sorry. How embarrassing. Okay, so my third question. Um, you know, you were talking about China at various point. You referred to it as a smaller player in relation to the US. But for people who work on development and are interested in other developing countries, China doesn't look like a smaller player. China looks like a very big player with a kind of history of state formation that's very different from other parts of the world, and an immense kind of state capacity. And I'm wondering what people who are interested in other countries and interested in digital development should draw from this case study. You know, what are the things that you think the Chinese experience indicates more broadly about digital development in other kinds of contexts? You know, what are the lessons there?

SPEAKER 4
Okay. Okay. Thanks for all these very thoughtful questions. Um, so first of all, with regard to patchy data, I think, um, I just talked about how the city brain oftentimes mistake with data. Right. So the, the the tracking, the, the the storing, they could at every step of data processing, there could be mistakes. And uh, um, so, um. And sometimes the the the the problem. The crisis will explode when the data is too comprehensive. Is too anticipatory. So if you got historical data and you combine historical data with real time data, and then the government starts to make predictions, that's the time when the public got nervous, right? Because it can potentially punish certain groups of people. So I remember that a couple of years ago, um, uh, Beijing municipal government. What I think there is a rumour going on saying that Beijing municipal government wants to set up, uh, facial recognition, uh, sensors in every subway station. So that got really, really got the people anxious. And then a leading state media gaming daily, uh, published a, uh, kind of a commentary criticising these kind of potential practice. So, so I think, yeah, the patchy data is one kind of problem. And then, uh, kind of a surveillance, uh, type of governing is also, uh, people are concerned about. Yeah. So I don't know if I answer your question directly, but I do see that even though, uh, the Chinese society is not as, um, outspoken as Western societies, um, there are growing disagreement over how the digital should be used and for what purpose.

SPEAKER 3
But do you think that the state and civil servants have reflective of the patchiness?

SPEAKER 4
The patchiness means that of the data, the incomplete, the missing. I don't know if I can. Okay, I don't know. Perfect. Imperfect call. Yeah. Okay. Um. That's not. I'm not aware of the. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because the data, um, the data collection is always very arbitrary, right? You you you select the data according to certain criteria. You. There is also always a mental, mental, um, kind of online, uh, pre-existing. And then therefore you go outside, you go to collect data. So it's um, so the, the patching is, uh, I think it's determined by how you conceptualise the purpose of the data. Um, yeah. So that's how I see it. And, uh, and the second question, the gap, I think it's very interesting. So going back to the example of the live streaming school. Uh, there is actually a twist in that story. Uh, the live streaming school was set up to help peasants to sell locally produced fruits. And so it's it really started with a very altruistic purpose. But then later on, they find out that it's. So it doesn't make economical sense to sell, um, fruits online. Okay. Because the fruits, some fruits could be larger than others. There is no, uh, only if it is, uh, planted by agricultural industry. The fruits are always kind of vary in terms of size, in terms of the flavour. So, uh, so um, it the, so it ends up that the, that the live streaming school has becoming a school meant for a rather than amateur live streamers but more kind of professional, uh, live streamers. So, um, yeah. So, um, so, um, I think in China, um. So what has happened is that, um, they, uh, they wants to build this momentum in this remote area for live streaming. And, uh, once, um, there are several established internet celebrities, they hope that these internet celebrities can make a living on their own, uh, and, uh, and on their, uh, kind of when they have time, when they have extra energy, they can help the peasants to sell produce. So, um, so I think. Yeah. So, um, uh, I think the government now indeed is becoming pragmatic in the sense that, uh, they, they first, first of all, they want to participate in the platform economy by having a local team of professional, uh, live streamers. And at the same time, they want these live streamers to do extra work, uh, to help the peasants. So and, and of course, being a live streamer is a tough, uh, job. It's not. It's not that easy. So that's why, um, uh, for example, the economic part, they, they, they provide a lot of support, uh, the support of providing supply chains. So the live streamers are not selling things that they like. Uh, personally, they sell things that are recommended to them by some brand name companies. So, um, yeah. So, yeah. So I think it's tough, but, um, yeah. So I think it's a so for the local governments perspective, the idea is that I want to upgrade, uh, the visibility of these local, this location, uh, in the mediated space, uh, because otherwise I'm just a remote place, uh, invisible to most of the public. Okay, the last question. Um.

SPEAKER 3
Was the question about what can we draw on from China's experience, other developing countries that have. You know, China is quite unique. Yeah.

SPEAKER 4
Yeah. Um. That's a very good question. I don't, uh, I think, um. Yeah. How to generalise, I don't think. Uh, I don't think I have the answer for that. I think, um, yeah. A couple of years ago when I was writing my, uh, my, my second book, uh, I was being asked the same question, like, how does this China Chinese experience, uh generalisable to other the rest of the developing countries. And, uh, at that time, I said, uh, the state matters, like when, for example, for critical scholars, oftentimes they they criticise they they, they support civil society, but they already give up on the state. So at least from my experience in the United States, I think critical political economists, the radical scholars, they, they, they consider themselves as radical. So they distance themselves from the political centre, political centre, and as a result, the the, the state capacity is being given away to the conservatives. So I think the state matters. So you have to you have to not only criticise, but also have the weaponry, which is to some extent is a state. So I think it's important to have a socialist state. Yeah, yeah. Even though maybe the state could deviate from its own political commitment, but it's still very important to have a.

SPEAKER 3
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I took from your cases is that the kind of imagined capabilities of digital technologies as networking devices, those capabilities aren't realised through technology alone. Right that the state is playing the supporting role at every turn. And I think there's similar to to the state matters. Okay. So we have about 15 more minutes or so for extra questions. Do we have anybody with burning questions. We have one question down here and one question up there and one question here. And ten okay. So I guess I ask everybody to make their questions quite concise so we can fit all four.

S13
Actually, it's not going to be a question. More like some comments. Yeah. Uh, actually it's not going to be a question. It's more like your comments on the previous question on the data matching issue. And also. It's the implication of China's experience I can probably draw a little bit on. So what what China did on this show like this, poverty reduction, how they could. They actually use this. So like, you know, the the data to, uh, you know, pinpoints the, you know, the households of this kind of the poor households, which I think needs this assistance. So, uh, the, the strategy they use is actually they just go to each of these, you know, households of this, you know, privilege to find out, you know, what they have and actually to identify them, whether they are, uh, you know, uh, you know, meet the criteria to receive the subsidy or, you know, um, assistance. But obviously there are lots of, like, misinformation. You know, if you just ask people about what, what things you have. So they actually come up with this different strategies, you know, uh, for example, they could ask their neighbours, so like, okay, do you know who is the poorest, you know, household in your whole village. So using those kind of, you know, techniques or, you know, strategies to try to, you know, uh, uh, improve the quality of that data. So this is not necessarily kind of like only come from this digital, uh, techniques. But they do relied on those kind of, you know, these digital, uh, techniques to, uh, help them to improve the data quality. So I think this is kind of like, you know, maybe related to the question raised about, you know, how they actually dealing with this data patching or data in perfectness, imperfect imperfection. Uh, question. But this actually also another one is actually on this. So like implication I think it's a again using the same examples, I think it's about how you can target in this kind of like a poor family, you know, which is sort of a very unique Chinese approach. But I heard actually from one of my colleagues who actually doing this, uh, you know, sharing this experience to, you know, other, uh, Central Asian countries, which makes them, for example, I think they are also approaching to try to using this kind of like a, you know, how to identify, you know, the households or the poor households. So then just providing this kind of a necessary support. So those are some examples I'm just going to want to share. So probably going to just uh related to this questions okay.

SPEAKER 3
Thank you very much. So let's have the question upstairs. And then ten in the front here. My, my at the very front in. And then Vladimir.

S14
Thank you I would like to ask a question in Mandarin first then translated into English.

SPEAKER 3
Okay.

S14
So my question is, how have China's initiatives in developing smart cities and digital village projects impacted the socio economic disparities within the country?

SPEAKER 3
Thank you. Thank you very much. And Tin in the front.

S15
Amazing. Thanks a lot for this wonderful talk. I think my question goes back a bit to that image you showed with the economist front page. And like the China, like the Chinese internet in a cage, we still very much find in the literature this conception of the Chinese internet as being Chinese. And it feels like in your conception of like the cyber sphere, this like Chinese cyber sphere seems to be very much like Chinese. But I'm wondering to what extent, you know, when you look at, like, the mix of hardware and software that very much come from different suppliers still in China, even though there's this effort to, you know, produce more in indigenous technologies. I'm just wondering to what extent the Chinese cyber sphere is actually Chinese. And now, like the implications, if you could say a bit more on how it relates to global forces and how, you know, Chinese tech firms are still very much embedded in the global economy, and there are big influences in the way they operate in China. And my second question has more to do with the theoretical framework. You know, I very like I very much like the fact that you're using this kind of infrastructural turn and looking at the materiality of the technology. I myself try to to use this a bit in my own PhD. I was just wondering if you could reflect a bit on the advantages and limits of the theoretical framework and what you found in your own research? Thank you.

SPEAKER 3
Okay, we have a final question from Vladimir, who's in a very nice suit today.

S16
Well thank you. Um, my question also relates to the economist front page. Um, the idea of a China sketch cannot be applied to the way Western cyber sphere works today. Because we see a lot of censorship. We see the idea that misinformation is the biggest threat expressed at Davos world Economic Forum. We see Biden's unconstitutional bullying of, um, Facebook and other social media into, um, censoring some information. So probably instead of having a China sketch at the front page, we should have, you know, the United States gauge or European gauge, but probably we will not see that. So to what extent the role of the state in censoring controlling the cyber sphere extends to to the west?

SPEAKER 3
Okay. You have about five minutes.

SPEAKER 4
Okay. So I think the first question, I think I already answered that about the, um, uh, the developmental gap, right. So how does developmental gap affect. Um, well, well, China, of course, is a big country. We can talk about, uh, many China's right. It depends on where you are located. So Zhejiang, of course, is very, um, uh, is a frontrunner in terms of digitisation. But if you go to other places, uh, maybe the local government doesn't have as as much bargaining power as Zhejiang local government has with regard to Alibaba platform. So that's my hypothesis. I'm not 100% sure about how to think about kind of, uh, variations within China. But I'm sure if you go to London or like Hubei, like probably the situation, the local government business relationship will be different and the public's, uh, awareness is different. Yeah. So that's kind of my, uh, my my answer. The second, uh, question is about materiality, how the framework. Um, well, because I'm a from communication. So I think materiality is important to justify my approach. Uh, most of the people in journalism and communication studies, they study, um, textual representation. So they study culture, they study cultural representation, and they, uh, and American training, like, uh, the, the mainstream American communications research focus on media communication effect. So how can I package a story to persuade people that's the the dominant concern? Um, yeah. So I think, uh, having the material term of communication research is really important, uh, for me, um, and, uh, in terms of the limitations of this framework, um, well, I think right now I'm struggling how to internationalise my research because I have focussed a lot on China internally, uh, explaining China, making sense of China, but how to follow the digital footprints and, uh, um, yeah. So I think how how, for example, how Chinese political economy participated in the digital formation in Africa, in Latin America. That's the, uh, I think that your workshop will will be a very good. A launchpad for new types of research. Uh, yeah. Okay. So the last the last.

SPEAKER 3
Question was like, is the US also in a cage? I don't know if I'm paraphrasing, but I yeah.

SPEAKER 4
I think one of my colleagues did a very interesting empirical work. He's she's of the study people's behaviours. Like her question is if without the great firewall will Chinese people visit a website outside of China? So he finds out that even without the firewall, people will still visit the Chinese language website because of the linguistic limitation. So I think, uh, I think something is going on in the United States. I think, um, when people visit, uh, use the internet, it has a lot to do with, uh, there are like linguistic capacity there, there there are social kind of orientation. Like if you have a an ancestor coming from the Central Europe, I think it's more likely to visit, uh, to, to pay attention to information from that part of the world. So I don't think that the the internet opens up a window to everything. I think still your, your, your cognitive framework, uh, influence how you use the internet.

SPEAKER 3
Yeah. There was recently a piece in the New York Times about how the top ten Chinese films in the last few years no longer features American movies, and they're dropping out of a kind of market. So let's just thank Professor Yu Hong and David Soskice for this very stimulating. I also want to draw your attention that the Cutting Edge lecture series does not finish today. We have a great talk next week on debt and the climate change precipice. How can the global majority cope?