{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","id":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","uuid":"d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title":"State Platform Capitalism","normalized_title":"stateplatformcapitalism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781009619714","isbns":["9781009619714","9781009446594","9781009446587"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":98,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/State%20Platform%20Capitalism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d06b946b-6924-4f30-afbd-92f915edbae4/search"},"page":{"printed_page":41,"pdf_page":46,"physical_index":46,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"fa79da8eebee6cc053729e43b9b9573a08fcff8ff396c293b7a1c7dc3666c19a"},"chapter":"Cambridge Elements","content":"The importance of the party-state’s support for China’s private internet giants should not be underestimated. China’s platform firms mobilize the Digital Silk Road (DSR) like a franchise model, seeking to obtain official policy support for their profit-driven investment decisions (Triolo, 2022). China’s telecoms firms are encouraged to invest directly in provisioning of hard infrastructure overseas as part of the BRI and DSR. Subject to soft budget constraints (by way of preferential access to state financing), they are consequently able to prioritize strategic objectives, such as expanding coverage at the expense of profits. Private firms operating at other layers of the stack (see Table 5) leverage Chinese state firms’ significant cost advantages in providing hardware such as undersea cabling, 5/6 G base stations, and telecommunications networks. Contracts and financing for hard infrastructure often include conditions necessitating further spending with Chinese entities or simply are only interoperable with Chinese software providers – and so produce ‘cross-layer dependencies’ (Heeks et al., 2024). As such, multiple products and services are ‘bundled’ with one another, integrating Chinese firms across layers of a third country’s technology stack.\n\nChina’s state platform capitalism is perhaps most visible overseas in Southeast Asia, where Chinese platforms have expanded rapidly (Jia et al., 2018). Overseas Chinese populations with have provided a ready audience for Chinese e-commerce, social media, and digital payments platforms. And governments in the region often have few reservations about collaborating with Chinese firms – especially when major investments and favourable financing deals are on offer. In Malaysia, the state-backed Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation collaborated with Alibaba’s Cainiao logistics platform and Lazada e-commerce system to develop a Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) as part of a major Kuala Lumpur logistics cluster in 2017 (Naughton, 2020a). The DFTZ is the first major overseas project to incorporate the Ali-led electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), a digital trade facilitation initiative initiated by Jack Ma endorsed by the 2016 G20 summit. Alibaba collaborated with Chinese ministerial heads to obtain permission for private provision of customs checks through online verification and clearance mechanisms in support of the DFTZ (Wang and Yu, 2022). A second eWTP-integrated zone went into operation in Thailand in 2022 (Cao, 2022). In Indonesia, Huawei and ZTE increasingly provide extensive physical networking infrastructure, software solutions and cybersecurity training packages to local and national governments (Priyandita et al., 2022). This has enabled and encouraged the entry ofChinese smartphone, fintech, and cloud players into Indonesia at scale (Rakhmat, 2022, He, 2024).\n\nChina’s firms have expanded to challenge US incumbents because they offer vital digital infrastructures and services at highly competitive prices. This is especially so in Global South markets where weak competition and high demand for connectivity exists (Ho et al., 2023). Nevertheless, Chinese platform internationalization gives substantial power to Chinese firms as they embed third countries within a Chinese ‘digital ecosystem’ (Hinane El-Kadi, 2024). And the Chinese state plays a proactive role in supporting and securing the international expansion of its digital technology giants, re-emphasizing its commitment to the DSR at the Xi’an World Internet Conference in 2024 (Jiang, 2024). China’s top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, recently published a strategy document pledging to further expand DSR activities as a policy priority in the coming years. As China’s platforms develop international commercial expansion strategies which more systematically incorporate the support of state actors and agencies (Oh and No, 2020), they have begun to make significant progress in challenging US dominance of global cyberspace, while assisting Chinese efforts to exercise digital ‘infrastructural power’ globally (Munn, 2023).\n\nState Platform Capitalism\n\n41","previous_page":40,"next_page":42}