“Agility Over Stability: China’s Nice Reversal in Regulating the Platform Economic system“
Angela Zhang
Harvard Worldwide Regulation Journal, Quantity 63, Situation 2, pp. 457-514
Revealed in February 2023
Summary: This Article develops the five-element HAPPY mannequin to check Chinese language regulation: the regulatory course of is hierarchical, the highest management is adaptable, the Chinese language regulators are parochial, the corporations are pliant and the Chinese language public must yelp to be heard. By specializing in China’s nice reversal in regulating the platform financial system, I present that Chinese language coverage volatilities have stemmed from the hierarchical construction during which energy is centralized amongst high leaders, who additionally undergo from a continual deficit of data. I significantly spotlight how favorable help from the highest management, aggressive lobbying from tech corporations, and the bureaucratic inertia of the regulators collectively contributed to a lag in regulating Chinese language on-line platforms. When a disaster looms, the highest management rapidly mobilizes all administrative sources and propaganda to provoke a legislation enforcement marketing campaign in opposition to tech giants. Nevertheless, with out robust judicial oversight, aggressive company interventions create the chance of over-enforcement and administrative abuse. To date, China’s reorientation of its coverage management has considerably bolstered its regulatory capability throughout varied fronts together with monetary, antitrust, and information regulation. By exerting better oversight over platform governance, the federal government has enhanced the bargaining energy of the varied platform contributors in coping with the platforms. The federal government’s heavy-handed strategy has additionally afforded it nice leverage to nudge tech corporations to prioritize growing cutting-edge applied sciences, and to steer them away from international inventory markets, thus lowering reliance on the West for each applied sciences and capital. Regardless of the marketing campaign’s speedy impression, it stays to be seen whether or not it would result in lasting adjustments, particularly in gentle of the persistent lobbying from tech corporations and the chance of regulatory seize. On the similar time, the risky coverage swing has itself generated dangers and uncertainties, which in flip may trigger turmoil to home social and monetary stability. As the remainder of the world is equally confronted with thorny questions on rein in Massive Tech, China’s expertise with platform regulation may provide some classes that inform the worldwide coverage debate. Though this Article focuses totally on the platform financial system, the HAPPY mannequin has the promise to make clear the complexity and dynamics in different areas of regulatory governance in China and past.
