Foundations of the Chinese Internet

You are likely reading this because you have a curiosity about the state of the world's largest and most influential country - the People's Republic of China (PRC). China is an emerging power with aspirations to reclaim world dominance, but its motivations for doing so are more nuanced and complex than many observers - including the Western public - would like to admit. In this work, we will explore the social, cultural, and political dynamics truly involved in the making of the modern PRC state. As the book suggests, we will be doing such an analysis through the prism of the internet. From a business perspective, we will see that China is both a brand and a multinational corporation posing as a unified state and culture (in a reversed role from that of a Facebook or a Google in the West). From this we will see that there is a great shift going on in China as directed by its supreme leader, Xi Jinping. I believe that the dual lenses of the tech industry and tech policy bring this shift into a focus that is easier to digest. We have also seen that a variety of tech products have emerged in China to meet the needs and roles of the Chinese public in a way that diverges from the global unity aspired by other forms of social and digital media (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.). This book will explore the dynamic and interdisciplinary elements that go into the creation of these products, as well as the unique ecosystem that they support.