ABSTRACT
The specter of global digital China looms large in foreign policy debates around the world. Political headlines fuel a polarizing sentiment. The ongoing US–China trade dispute, in particular, has sucked ZTE, Huawei, and even TikTok into a vortex of geopolitical actions, countermeasures, and performative escalation. Issues pertaining to security, privacy, and development are further generalized through the mass mediation by international news, regional diplomacy, and social media. The Chinese state is adept at domesticating the internet as a global medium into the “Chinese internet.” In this introduction, as inspired by the contributions to this book, the authors highlight three foci—history, power, and governance—the conjoining of which opens up a critical, analytical possibility of the technological interfaces with the global system. Looking forward, artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, all enabled by 5G networks, are driving a new vector of change.
