Lecture | LIAS Lunch Talk Series
The Great Rectification: A New Paradigm for China’s Online Platform Economy
- Date
- Thursday 12 October 2023
- Time
- Location
-
- Room
- 1.04 (Verbarium)
Abstract
This talk discusses the regulatory campaign against China’s online platform sector that took place between 2020 and 2022. It focuses specifically on its substantive policy aspects, arguing that this “rectification” both intended to remedy existing perceived problems in the online platform industry and to reshape the sector to better meet the needs of the rapidly altering economic and development policy environment. The rectification pursued six discrete goals: managing macro- economic risks, maintaining content control, addressing emerging social concerns, remedying market imbalances, mitigating foreign risks, and supporting the technology development area. It led to significant punitive actions, as well as rhetorical and behavioural shifts by companies. As such, it provides a first test case of the bigger changes occurring under the post-19th Party Congress “New Era”, but also holds comparative potential for researching platform governance worldwide.
About the speaker
Rogier Creemers is University Lecturer in the Law and Governance of China at LIAS. His research focus lies in Chinese technology regulation and policy, both domestically and internationally. He is the recipient of a NWO Vidi grant on a project examining the digitisation of the Chinese state, and leads a project at the Leiden Asia Centre, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to examine the impact of China’s growing digital footprint. Some of his recent work has been published in the Journal of Contemporary China and the Journal of Cybersecurity, and an edited volume on the development of China’s “Smart State” will be published.