The Cultural Governance of Digital China

Abstract

Chapter 8 examines information and communication governance in the People’s Republic of China, a topic that is closely linked to broader debates about Chinese politics in the twenty-first century. The chapter reviews discussions about authoritarian politics, arguing that ongoing debates about authoritarianism underemphasize important aspects of Chinese politics and ultimately obscure how communication governance and political legitimacy work in general. This is in part because discussions about authoritarianism potentially draw attention away from the degree of participation and collaboration that takes place in Chinese politics. It is in part because such a focus creates unwarranted boundaries between authoritarian China and an ostensibly democratic ‘West’. Such boundaries fail to acknowledge how politics around the world are increasingly intertwined with information management and control, and how the Chinese case is not as peculiar as it is often made out to be.