ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of China’s maker movement, and its connection to the state-led campaign of mass entrepreneurship and innovation from 2015 to today. My research unveils that performative governance is the fundamental characteristics of this political campaign. I focus on three groups of entrepreneurial talents in Shenzhen: makers, Chinese returnees, and non-Chinese entrepreneurs, and show how the Chinese state’s governing instruments are applied differently to these groups and analyse their respective experiences and reactions to state policy shifts during the political campaign. This chapter illuminates how the Chinese state’s political forces engage with the market forces.
