Why has China’s stance toward its homegrown internet companies shifted so abruptly from enthusiastic support to overt repression? This talk addresses the question by drawing on my manuscript-in-progress. Through a detailed account of the corporate-state relationship in the case of Didi Chuxing, China’s ride-hailing giant, this talk will explain how both political and corporate power have found common ground in reappropriating the positive meaning of innovation and technological solutionism for their own—often mundane—purposes. This convergence, I argue, has led to a host of complex problems. Moving beyond a focus on the role of technological innovation in China’s economic development, my work examines it as a tool of entrenchment that serves existing political and economic interests while obscuring underlying power dynamics. The book project draws upon multiple years of ethnography, including in-depth interviews with hard-to-access actors such as local and high-level officials, Didi insiders, industry experts, and more. It offers valuable insights into studying sensitive subjects without endangering informants in China, a country where conducting ethnographic research has become increasingly challenging.

About the Speaker

Angela Ke Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore and a Fung Global Fellow (2023–2024) at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University. She received her Ph.D. in communications and media studies from the Institute of Communication Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. As a Visiting Fellow at CIW, she is finalizing her first book, which explores the corporate-state relationship in China’s high-tech industries, situating it within the cult of innovation and the ideology of technological salvation.

The ANU China Seminar Series is supported by the Australian Centre on China in the World at ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.

Contact the host of Broken Promises: Ride-Hailing and the Failures of Technological Solutionism in China