Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

China's approach to digital governance has gained global influence, often evoking Orwellian “Big Brother” comparisons. Governing Digital China (2025) challenges this perception, arguing that China's approach is radically different in practice. This book explores the logic of popular corporatism, highlighting the bottom-up influences of China's largest platform firms and its citizens. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and nationally representative surveys, Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo track governance of social media and commercial social credit ratings during both the Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping eras. Their findings reveal how Chinese tech companies such as Tencent, Sina, Baidu, and Alibaba have become consultants and insiders to the state, thus forming a state-company partnership. Meanwhile, citizens voluntarily produce data, incentivizing platform firms to cater to their needs and motivating resistance by platforms. In this talk, co- author Ting Luo will unveil the intricate mechanisms linking the state, platform firms, and citizens in the digital governance of authoritarian states.