From empowering Internet to digital dominance: The past, present, and future of cyber politics in China

Abstract

The article aims at offering a bird’s-eye overview of the evolution of cyber politics in China in the past 30 years, tracking real-world developments while surveying the main trends in the scholarly field. It periodizes the past three decades into three phases with a focus on the changing state–society relations. It reveals that cyber politics in China has evolved from the period of an empowering Internet with the state adapting to catch up to one of authoritarian resilience when social participation and state control reached a balance, and ultimately to the “authoritarian dominance” phase with the state attempting to dominate the society and platforms. The article concludes by discussing the future trends of cyber politics in China, arguing that “authoritarian dominance” is detrimental to the Party-state’s rule, thus will hardly be sustainable despite the state’s strong capacity and will to control the Internet.