Click Click Boom w/ Lizhi Liu - U.S.-China Perception Monitor
The rise of e-commerce giants such as Taobao and JD.com has, over the past two decades, not only transformed the Chinese economy but also profoundly reshaped state–business relations. It helped shift an economy once driven by investment and exports toward domestic consumption. In their ascent to influence and power, private firms also began to shoulder quasi-governmental functions. That an authoritarian government allowed the growth of such a powerful private sector for so long is puzzling. Dr. Lizhi Liu argues that the e-commerce sector reveals two features of Chinese governance, which she terms “institutional outsourcing” and “strategic nonregulation.” She further shows how China’s digital market sheds light on the country’s political economy. As Dr. Liu observes, “For private businesses, the most valuable role of local governments may not have been active support, but rather inaction that created space for markets to grow. This echoes a key Taoist idea of non-doing (无为): at times, ‘