High wire: How China regulates Big Tech and governs its economy. By AngelaZhang, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2024. pp. 432. USD 34.95 (hardcover). ISBN : 9780197682258
本书通过空间和时间两个维度的分析框架，以杂技演员叠罗汉走钢丝为比喻，揭示中国监管大型科技公司的动态过程，包括宽松、严打、越权、放松的循环，并分析平台自我监管与政府干预的互动。
A few years ago, Eli Friedman and Richard Smith debated in the journal Spectre whether China is a capitalist society. Defining capitalism as a “a system in which human need is subsidiary to value production” (Friedman, 2020), Friedman argued that China was fundamentally capitalist. Its leader was “defending globalization in Davos and advocating for the market to play a ‘decisive role’ in resource allocation.” Smith countered that China was, instead, a “hybrid bureaucratic collectivist-capitalist economy in which the bureaucratic collectivist state sector is overwhelmingly dominant” (Smith, 2020). While the “hybrid bureaucratic collectivist-capitalist” formulation is a mouthful, it significantly and helpfully complicates our understanding of Chinese economic governance. In High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs its Economy, Angela Zhang both underscores the complexity of Chinese bureaucracy, and helps readers understand it by applying an analytic framework of crystalline clarity. The framework is both spatial and temporal. Spatially, she asks us to imagine the Chinese regulatory infrastructure as a troupe of acrobats attempting to stand on one another's shoulders in a reverse pyramid atop a bicyclist crossing a high wire (thus the book's title). Reminiscent of Roger Boesche's characterization of Tocqueville's vision of social order as a finely balanced mobile (Boesche, 1983), Zhang's high wire act metaphor emphasizes volatility and fragility in a “dynamic pyramid model.” The precarity of this arrangement leads, in turn, to a temporal model of government intervention with respect to Big Tech: one of lax regulation, harsh crackdown, agency overreach, and regulatory easing. In tracing this dynamic of underreach and overreach, Zhang focuses on the platforms operated by large Chinese firms like Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance. She analyzes platform regulation and self-regulation in two of the book's four parts, after developing the book's analytical framework in its first part. Her account of platform regulation is focused on competition, data, and labor regulation. Platforms' self-regulation takes on many consumer protection roles. The self-regulation portion of the book is particularly illuminating, explaining how Chinese netizens participate in low-level economic governance tasks. These range from “crowdjudging” (e.g., deciding in large groups whether certain unbranded products are confusingly similar to branded ones) to “riot” (e.g., writing very negative and unfounded reviews about stores in order to protest a policy change at an online mall). When self-regulation fails, government can strategically intervene or withhold help, based on either Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Principles, connections, or some combination of the two. Those looking for a simple, top-down model of tech governance in High Wire will be disappointed. Zhang argues that power is fragmented within the Chinese regulatory bureaucracy, noting that, in “the most recent round of the law-enforcement campaign against Big Tech, at least 14 central ministries joined the Supreme People's Court and a number of other CCP and social organizations in helping to devise new legislative proposals and implement policy guidance from above.” The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) takes the lead on competition law, while the Cyberspace Administration of China has authority in data regulation. But each of these agencies can influence the other and can be interfered with by other entities, such as the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Zhang's chart-summary of the “Central Ministries and Other Organizations in Charge of Platform Regulation” is a helpful reminder that a population of over 1.4 billion persons will inevitably experience some forms of pluralism in governance. Her temporal model reveals significant reversals in regulatory approaches over relatively short time periods. However, geopolitically inclined readers are likely to wonder if the sometimes erratic governance of platform tech in China reflects a larger purpose beyond bureaucratic fragmentation. Zhang's acrobatic metaphor suggests two perspectives on regulators' performance. In front of an audience, such troupes almost always impress with virtuoso feats of spectacular physical strength and dexterity. This “on-stage” success cannot help but bring to mind the spectacular economic achievements of Chinese technocracy. However, we can also imagine all the rehearsals of such spectacles, replete with painful falls, bossy choreographers, and long-suffering performers. These failed rehearsals are a good metaphor for the overreaches and underreaches Zhang documents. Extending the reach of her model, Zhang addresses the recent rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) with admirable alacrity in the concluding chapter of High Wire. We now appear to be in a time of relative laxity. As Zhang observes, “While risk control was … mentioned during a meeting of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party in April 2023, the priority is now decidedly on development rather than regulation.” Regulatory interventions appear poised to deter foreign competition, offering opportunities to Chinese firms to “develop their own foundation models or pivot toward providing bespoke services to private companies.” Thus the Chinese government acts “not just as a regulator, but also as an advocate, benefactor, and investor in AI.” Zhang's spatial model of Chinese technology regulation appears to fit the generative AI case well, as numerous agencies vie to both fund and shape the technology, while retaining a relatively strict formation and alignment with key values articulated at the top of the party apparatus. High Wire is certain to be a vital starting point for anyone seeking to understand the nature of Chinese technology regulation. Building from a focus on technology platforms, Zhang has also developed a more general theory of economic regulation. I expect to see future studies of Chinese economic governance apply and build upon her framework.