The Geopolitics of Chinese Internets

Featuring leading scholars on ‘Chinese internets’ – in the plural – from around the world, this interdisciplinary book explores the changing digital landscape in China and provides insight into contemporary Chinese techno-geopolitics.

Policymakers, commentators and the mass media have widely viewed ‘Chinese tech’ as a unitary and statist monolith. This predominant view, however, is not only incomplete but has become increasingly obsolete. Using a pluralist and multilayered approach to analysing Chinese techno-geopolitics, this volume addresses the following important questions:

• Who are the key players in ‘Chinese internets’ today?
• What role do government agencies, state-owned enterprises, private companies and individual netizens play?
• How do ‘Chinese internets’ operate at the global, regional, national or local levels?
• How are external world or regional events influencing or being influenced by geopolitical patterns within China?

The Geopolitics of Chinese Internets will be a key resource for policymakers, scholars, researchers and practitioners interested in Chinese techno-geopolitics and the changing digital landscape in China. This book was originally published as a special issue of Information, Communication & Society.

Jack Linchuan Qiu is Shaw Foundation Professor in Media Technology at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has published more than 120 research articles and chapters, and 10 books in English and Chinese including Goodbye iSlave: A Manifesto for Digital Abolition (2016). He is a co-founder of the Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC) and an elected Fellow of the International Communication Association.

Peter K. Yu is Regents Professor of Law and Communication and Director of the Center for Law and Intellectual Property at Texas A&M University, USA. He is a co-founder of CIRC and Vice-President and Co-Director of Studies of the American Branch of the International Law Association. Born and raised in Hong Kong, he previously held the Kern Family Chair in Intellectual Property Law at Drake University Law School, Des Moines, USA, and was Wenlan Scholar Chair Professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, China.

Elisa Oreglia is a Reader in the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, UK. She is the principal investigator for the European Research Council-funded project DIGISILK, which looks at Chinese digital investments and technological influence in neighbouring countries.