Editor’s note for July 13, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader:
The Chinese government is again signaling an end to its internet company crackdown that began in earnest with the suspension in November 2020 of the IPO of Alibaba affiliate Ant Group:
China’s No. 2 official, premier Lǐ Qiáng 李强, yesterday held a meeting with executives from nearly a dozen Chinese internet companies, where he said that the “platform economy” (i.e. large internet companies) had done the following good things for China:
- Boosted demand;
- Provided an engine for innovation and development;
- Created new channels for employment and entrepreneurship;
- Offered support for public services.
He added that “the platform economy had taken an increasingly prominent position in China’s overall development,” and “would have a more significant role as the country embarks on a new journey to build itself into a modern socialist country.”
This is quite a change of tune, and a sign of how worried the central government is about the economy and the timidity of the animal spirits of investors and entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile the Cyberspace Administration of China today finalized rules to govern generative artificial intelligence. China is the first country to do so.
Just yesterday, Elon Musk said “China is definitely interested in working in a cooperative international framework for AI regulation,” based on conversations he had in China a few weeks ago.
Musk is right, but a system of rules to govern artificial intelligence and the information it produces that Musk and the Cyberspace Administration of China agree on sounds like my worst nightmare.
Our Word of the Day is: platform enterprises (平台企业 píngtái qǐyè), a phrase often used in China to refer to giant tech companies.
