Panel 5: The State’s Footprint in Digital Development Across Borders

May 9, Morning Session

Chair: AnnaLee (Anno) Saxenian, School of Information, University of California, Berkeley

Discussant:

Armando Lara-Millán, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

Thomas Cao, Flether School of Global Affairs, Tuft University

5.1  Bringing the Cloud to Ground: Interface Politics and the Transnational Dynamics of Informational Capitalism

Bolun Zhang, Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University

Abstract

Digital and economic sociologists often conceptualize informational infrastructures such as cloud computing as global scaling and homogenizing devices, exemplified by the United States’ model of informational capitalism. Drawing on STS perspectives, I argue that such accounts overlook the realities of implementing these technologies “on the ground” and the diverse forms of infrastructural work they require.

Based on an ethnography of a Chinese IT company implementing cloud computing for a U.S. client, I show that the presumed homogenizing power of information technologies depends on their ability to embed themselves materially and culturally within overlapping local sociotechnical ecologies. I conceptualize this embedding process as a “politics of interfaces,” whereby technologies connect with existing artifacts and re-activate differences rooted in political economy and historical legacies. The findings challenge universalist accounts of informational capitalism and highlight its situated variations and re-articulations.

5.2  Between Geoeconomic Competition and Local Embeddedness: How Chinese Investors Influence Digitalisation in Acquired German Manufacturing Companies

Lea Schneidemesser, Department of Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

Abstract

The growing economic and geopolitical importance of digital technologies and data, coupled with the Chinese Government’s expressed ambition for Chinese companies to occupy a leading position in this domain, raises questions regarding the role of acquired foreign subsidiaries in realizing this objective. Drawing on comparative capitalism research, this paper discusses how local institutions, investor strategies, and the aspirations of the Chinese Government interact to shape the digital transformation of manufacturing companies in Germany.

Building on fieldwork in Germany and China, consisting of 27 company visits, 73 interviews, and focus group discussions with works council members, trade union, and management representatives, this paper investigates how digitalisation is unfolding in 15 German manufacturing companies with Chinese investors. The eight companies undertaking digitalisation projects indicate that German companies primarily control the digitalisation of processes, whereas Chinese parent companies and subsidiaries in China play a role in developing digital business models in some cases. This signals a shift in innovation patterns and changes in inter-firm relationships.

The paper addresses the conference theme of how government organizations shape global digital technological development by providing insights into how Chinese MNCs influence company-level digitalization in Europe and to what extent they contribute to the Chinese government’s industrial policy goals. The paper integrates a political economy perspective with qualitative in-depth research on the socio-technical complexity of digitalization processes on the ground. It thereby goes beyond macro-level studies that often equate technological possibilities with their realization, particularly in the case of China, and beyond studies that remain on the micro-level, not integrating the wider geopolitical context.

5.3  Partnerships for Advancing Internationally Oriented Digital Development under “One Country Two Systems”: The Cases of Hong Kong and Macau

Yujia He, School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky

Ka Zeng, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Abstract

Existing scholarship on China’s digital development and policy has paid insufficient attention to the digital transformation and international digital partnerships of organizations within Hong Kong and Macau—China’s two special administrative regions (SARs) governed under the unique “One Country, Two Systems” institutional framework. Since their handover to China as former colonies from Britain and Portugal, respectively, these two SAR cities have experienced closer integration with the mainland China through ambitious initiatives such as Greater Bay Area planning, while maintaining their distinct legal institutions and cultural traditions. This has allowed them to continue to serve unique roles as “global connector” cities linking China to the global economy.

This study examines the research question: How do organizations in such global cities embedded within a sovereign state promote internationally oriented digital development? Drawing on fieldwork interviews with local stakeholders conducted between 2023–2025 and secondary data such as government documents and industry reports, the study argues that, in both cases, initiatives fostering international digital partnerships have emerged through a combination of top-down state planning, regulation and financial incentives, and locally driven policy adaptions shaped by each city’s distinct historical institutions and economic specialization.

In addition, government policies tend to prioritize the market logic of data as resources for economic growth, promoting these cities as technology and data hubs connecting China to the world through data flows, trade integration, cross-border digital payments, talent and infrastructure development, and international regulatory harmonization. At the same time, local private-sector actors, universities and other non-governmental organizations leverage their existing international networks to implement a wide range of initiatives, often in tandem with state policy support. Yet challenges remain in local technical capacity building, data regulatory harmonization, talent attraction, and citizens’ trust and awareness of digital initiatives.

By focusing empirically on two understudied global cities within China, this study contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of understanding China’s efforts to promote digital development and the internationalization of its digital economy from an ecosystem perspective, one that moves beyond the predominant focus on the central state to incorporate the roles of diverse non-state players.