Andrew Collier, China’s Technology War: Why Beijing Took Down its Tech Giants

The rapidly evolving role of technology in the economic and geopolitical landscape with the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has given rise to a new form of conflict—the conflict between States and their technology corporations. Across the globe, major technology companies have faced opposition from their respective national governments, including Australia, the US, India, and the European Union. In the spotlight are the increasingly problematic relations between the Chinese State and its big technology corporations, especially when the Chinese State launched a clampdown on some of its biggest technological conglomerates in 2019–2020. Since the Reform and Opening-up policies, China has fostered the unrestrained growth of its private sector. Therefore, it came as a surprise when Chinese regulators initiated a crackdown on key entrepreneurs and major internet corporations—pivotal players driving China’s AI industry. Analysts worldwide interpreted this shift in the Chinese State’s behaviour towards its technology giants in various ways. Some saw it as part of China’s rectification measures to align private firms with national objectives (Zenglein and Gunter Citation2023), while others viewed it as a signal of the ‘Resurgence of the State’(Lardy Citation2019; Leutert, Citation2018) and a ‘U-Turn’ (Brødsgaard, Citation2018) from the Reform and Opening-up policies.