New book by Angela Zhang: High Wire - How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy (Oxford University Press)

High Wire - How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy
Angela Zhang
Oxford University Press
Published in April 2024
432 pp.

Description: In High Wire, Angela Huyue Zhang provides a comprehensive and sophisticated overview of how China regulates its enormous tech sector. By closely scrutinizing the incentives and interactions among the key players, Zhang introduces a dynamic pyramid model to analyze the structure, process, and outcome of China's unique regulatory system. She showcases the shrewd self-regulatory tactics employed by Chinese tech titans to survive and thrive in an institutional environment plagued by endemic fraud and corruption. She also reveals how the Chinese State has given a helping hand to digital platforms by offering them indispensable judicial support.

Through a robust analysis of the tumultuous 2020-2022 tech crackdown, Zhang explores the model's profound impact on three vital pillars of Chinese platform regulation, including antitrust, data, and labor enforcement. As Zhang demonstrates, the tech crackdown has led to the private sector's retreat and the state's advancement in the tech industry. These regulatory shifts have also steered investors from consumer tech businesses toward hardcore technologies that are essential for China's bid to overtake the United States in innovation.

More than just a study of China, Zhang offers a global perspective by comparing China's regulatory landscape with rapidly moving developments in the United States and the European Union. This comparative analysis reveals the shared regulatory challenges all face and sheds light on the future direction of Chinese tech regulation. Finally, she peers into the future of China's tech governance, specifically focusing on the burgeoning realm of generative artificial intelligence.

Providing an unparalleled deep dive into China's rapidly evolving digital economy, High Wire is a must-read for those interested in how the manifold ways in which China regulates and governs its economy.

Professor Angela Zhang’s “High Wire” Book Talk Series: Please click here for details.
Book Trailer: Please click here to view on YouTube.

Angela Zhang on Agility Over Stability: China’s Great Reversal in Regulating the Platform Economy (Harvard International Law Journal)

"Agility Over Stability: China’s Great Reversal in Regulating the Platform Economy"
Angela Zhang
Harvard International Law Journal, Volume 63, Issue 2, pp. 457-514
Published in February 2023

Abstract: This Article develops the five-element HAPPY model to study Chinese regulation: the regulatory process is hierarchical, the top leadership is adaptable, the Chinese regulators are parochial, the firms are pliant and the Chinese public need to yelp to be heard. By focusing on China’s great reversal in regulating the platform economy, I show that Chinese policy volatilities have stemmed from the hierarchical structure in which power is centralized among top leaders, who also suffer from a chronic deficit of information. I particularly highlight how favorable support from the top leadership, aggressive lobbying from tech firms, and the bureaucratic inertia of the regulators together contributed to a lag in regulating Chinese online platforms. When a crisis looms, the top leadership quickly mobilizes all administrative resources and propaganda to initiate a law enforcement campaign against tech giants. However, without strong judicial oversight, aggressive agency interventions create the risk of over-enforcement and administrative abuse. Thus far, China’s reorientation of its policy control has significantly bolstered its regulatory capacity across various fronts including financial, antitrust, and data regulation. By exerting greater oversight over platform governance, the government has enhanced the bargaining power of the various platform participants in dealing with the platforms. The government’s heavy-handed approach has also afforded it great leverage to nudge tech firms to prioritize developing cutting-edge technologies, and to steer them away from foreign stock markets, thus reducing reliance on the West for both technologies and capital. Despite the campaign’s immediate impact, it remains to be seen whether it will bring about lasting changes, especially in light of the persistent lobbying from tech firms and the risk of regulatory capture. At the same time, the volatile policy swing has itself generated risks and uncertainties, which in turn could cause turmoil to domestic social and financial stability. As the rest of the world is similarly confronted with thorny questions about how to rein in Big Tech, China’s experience with platform regulation could offer some lessons that inform the global policy debate. Although this Article focuses primarily on the platform economy, the HAPPY model has the promise to shed light on the complexity and dynamics in other areas of regulatory governance in China and beyond.

Angela Zhang et al on Improving Dispute Resolution in Two-Sided Platforms: The Case of Review Blackmail (Management Science)

"Improving Dispute Resolution in Two-Sided Platforms: The Case of Review Blackmail"
Yiangos Papanastasiou, S. Alex Yang, and Angela Huyue Zhang
Management Science
Published online on 23 January 2023
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4655

Abstract: We study the relative merits of different dispute resolution mechanisms in two-sided platforms in the context of disputes involving malicious reviews and blackmail. We develop a game-theoretic model of the strategic interactions between a seller and a (potentially malicious) consumer. In our model, the seller takes into account the impact of consumer reviews on his future earnings; recognizing this, a malicious consumer may attempt to blackmail the seller by purchasing the product, posting a negative review, and demanding ransom to remove it. Without a dispute resolution mechanism in place, the presence of malicious consumers in the market can lead to a significant decrease in seller profit, especially in settings characterized by high uncertainty about product quality. The introduction of a standard centralized dispute resolution mechanism (whereby the seller can report allegedly malicious reviews to the host platform, which then judges whether to remove the review) can restore efficiency to some extent but requires the platform’s judgments to be both very quick and highly accurate. We demonstrate that a more decentralized mechanism (whereby the firm is allowed to remove reviews without consulting the platform, subject to ex post penalties for wrongdoing) can be much more effective, while simultaneously alleviating—almost entirely—the need for the platform’s judgments to be quick. Our results suggest that decentralization, when implemented correctly, may represent a more efficient approach to dispute resolution.

This paper was accepted by Victor Martínez-de-Albéniz, operations management.

Funding: S. A. Yang and A. H. Zhang acknowledge the support of the Hong Kong General Research Fund [Grant “Decentralizing Platform Governance: Innovations from China; Project 17614921].

Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4655.

HKU Research Awards in the Law Faculty in 2021-2022

Kerry Holdings Professor in Law Douglas Arner Awarded Outstanding Researcher Award

Congratulations to Kerry Holdings Professor in Law Douglas Arner who is the 2021-2022 award recipient of the Outstanding Researcher Award (ORA), in the Faculty of Law, awarded by The University of Hong Kong.  He is also  the recipient of  RGC Senior Research Fellow in 2020, Finalist for edX Prize in 2020, and Outstanding Young Researcher Award in 2007.   Currently, he is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, as well as the Director of LLM in Compliance and Regulation, and LLM in Corporate and Financial Law, and Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) Programmes, and is the former Director of the Asian Institute of International Financial Law at the University of Hong Kong, . He served as Head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011 to 2014 and as Co-Director of the Duke University-HKU Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005 to 2016. Douglas has published eighteen books, including most recently The RegTech Book (Wiley 2019), and Reconceptualising Global Finance and its Regulation (Cambridge 2016); Financial Markets in Hong Kong: Law and Practice (Oxford, 2d ed., 2016), Finance in Asia: Institutions, Regulation and Policy (Routledge 2013), From Crisis to Crisis: The Global Financial Crisis and Regulatory Failure (Kluwer 2011) and Financial Stability, Economic Growth and the Role of Law (Cambridge 2007), and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation. His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849, where he is among the top 75 authors in the world by total downloads. Douglas led the development of Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 80,000 learners spanning every country in the world. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, and an Advisory Board Member of the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE). Douglas was an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council (2013-2019) and has served as a consultant with, among others, the United Nations, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. He is currently leading a major 5 year Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Research Fellowship project on the role of FinTech and RegTech in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals as well as a 4 year RGC Research Impact Fund project focusing on FinTech policy and regulation. From 2012-2018, Douglas served as Project Coordinator of a major five-year project funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council Theme-based Research Scheme on “Enhancing Hong Kong’s Future as a Leading International Financial Centre”. He is currently one of the core team of another TRS project focusing on digital finance, financial stability and financial inclusion.  He has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others. 

     Click here to view more on  Kerry Holdings Professor in Law Douglas Arner's work.

Dr Angela Zhang Awarded Outstanding Young Researcher Award

Congratulations to Dr Angela Zhang who is the 2021-2022 award recipient of the Outstanding Young Researcher Award (OYRA) in the Faculty of Law, awarded by The University of Hong Kong. She won the Research Output Prize in 2019, in the Faculty of Law, awarded by The University of Hong Kong, for her scholarly work entitled “The Role of Media in Antirust: Evidence from China,” (2018) 41 Fordham International Law Journal 473-530.

     Currently, she serves as Director of the Philip K. H. Wong Centre for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong, which promotes legal scholarship with the aims of developing a deeper understanding of China and facilitating dialogue between East and West.  She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law in the University of Hong Kong. An expert in Chinese law, Angela has written extensively on Chinese regulatory issues. Her first book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism garnered significant attention during Beijing’s crackdown on Chinese Big Tech and was named a Best Political Economy Book of the Year by ProMarket in 2021. Angela is now working on her second book about China’s model of regulatory governance, which is expected to be released in 2023.

            With a broad research interests in the areas of law and economics, particularly in transnational legal issues bearing on businesses, she as a young researcher has massive research outputs appearing in leading international law reviews such as Harvard International Law Journal, Yale International Law Journal, Stanford International Law Journal, as well as top peer-reviewed journals from other disciplines such as Management Science and China Quarterly.

          She is a four-time recipient of the Concurrence Antitrust Writing Award, which selects the best articles published globally in the field of antitrust law each year. She received a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (£10,000) in 2014 and two Hong Kong GRF grants, one (HK$637,440) in 2018 and the other (HK$ 656,825) in 2021.

      She is a highly sought-after commentator on Chinese regulatory issues. She often speaks at prestigious antitrust conferences in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is also frequently interviewed by major international media outlets and regularly contributes commentaries to the popular press.

     Click here to view more on Dr Angela Zhang's work.

Thomas Cheng Awarded Research Output Prize

Congratulations to Thomas Cheng who is the 2021-2022 award recipient of the Research Output Prize  (ROP) in the Faculty of Law, awarded by The University of Hong Kong. The research output prize was for his book, The Patent-Competition Interface in Developing Countries, published by Oxford University Press, in 2021 (544pp). 

     Currently, he is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong, who has written extensively on competition law in developing countries and on the competition law of a number of Asian jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, China, and Japan. His research has appeared in respected specialist U.S. journals, including Chicago Journal of International Law, Berkeley Business Law Journal, Virginia Law & Business Review, and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and in leading competition law journals such as Journal of Antitrust Enforcement and World Competition. In 2020, he published Competition Law in Developing Countries, with Oxford University Press. 

     His research has been recognized internationally. He has been twice awarded the Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award in the vertical restraints and antitrust and IP categories. Apart from awards, his stature as a scholar has been recognized through appointments to the executive and advisory boards of a number of leading international competition law organizations such as the American Antitrust Institute and the Academic Society for Competition Law (“ASCOLA”). He has made critical contributions to the development of competition law in Hong Kong. He advised the government extensively during the drafting of the city’s first competition law. He was a member of the inaugural Competition Commission and played a pivotal role in staff recruitment and setting up the Commission.

Angela Zhang on How Antitrust Facilitates China’s Goal to Achieve Technological Self-Sufficiency (China Platform Governance)

"How Antitrust Facilitates China’s Goal to Achieve Technological Self-Sufficiency"

Angela Zhang

China Platform Governance 

Published on 27 June 2022

Introduction: This essay is part of The Four Domains of Global Platform Governance, an essay series that examines platform governance from four distinct policy angles: content, data, competition and infrastructure.

     Ant Group’s attempted initial public offering (IPO) in 2020 was to be the biggest in world history. If it had succeeded, 18 Chinese individuals would have become billionaires overnight. Unfortunately for Ant, Chinese regulators put the brakes on the deal just two days before it was to go ahead (Yang and Wei 2020). Ant never became the biggest IPO in Chinese history, while Alibaba (Ant’s affiliated company) would, just a few months later, become the recipient of the biggest fine ever issued by Chinese antitrust authorities. The months leading up to that US$2.8 billion1 fine were characterized by a fierce antitrust campaign aimed at China’s tech giants, all of whom have since faced some level of regulatory scrutiny over their business practices. .... Click here to read the full text. 

Three HKU Law Scholars Profiled in HKU Bulletin (May 2022)

The latest HKU Bulletin magazine (May 2022, Vol. 23, No. 2) features the accomplishments of several Faculty of Law colleagues: Dr Angela Zhang (Research, pp 28/29), Professor He Xin (Research, pp 30/31), and Dr Haochen Sun (Books, pp 44/45). 

"China's Jumpy Take on Tech"

For years, the Chinese government treated technology companies with kid gloves, encouraging them to get on the innovating and making money,  But in 2020, that changed.  Dr Angela Hueyue Zhang has been looking into the factors motivating the new hard-line regulation of techonlogy in Mainland China ...

'China's volatile style of policymaking is deeply ingrained in its authoritarian governance system, where regulatory authorities need to adhere to central policy initiatives and administrative power is subject to few institutional constraints.'  

~ Dr Angela Huyue Zhang

Dr Zhang also recently had a book published by Oxford University Press on the wide-ranging issues involved in China’s regulatory regime, Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the rise of China challenges global regulation.

"Men Win Out in Divorce in China"
Professor He Xin's research shows that a combination of institutional constraints on Chinese judges, traditional values about gender, and income inequality frequently result in divorce decisions that are more favourable to men than women.

'The judges follow strictly the law and the instructions of the Supreme People’s Court and they think their decisions are neutral. But they are ignoring the underlying socioeconomic inequality between the two genders, which affects the outcomes.'

           ~ Professor He Xin 

Divorce in China: Institutional Constraints and Gendered Outcomes was published by NYU Press in 2021.

"Your Right to Technology" 

Access to COVID-19 vaccines, broadband connections and other beneficial technologies should be a human right, argues legal scholar Dr Haochen Sun in a new book.

'Technology has become the major driver of our economic, cultural and political life. We have to talk about access to technology as a human right so that everybody can benefit and we can prevent serious harm caused by improper application of the technology.'

          ~ Dr Haochen Sun

Angela Zhang on Didi's Failure to Listen Forces Rewrite of Chinese Tech Listing Rules (Nikkei Asia/Opinion)

"Didi's failure to listen forces rewrite of Chinese tech listing rules"

*Angela Zhang

Nikkei Asia/Opinion

Published on 9 July 2021

Introduction: When Jean Liu, the president of Didi Chuxing, was asked during an interview with Bloomberg Television why she had given up the Goldman Sachs managing director's role to join the ride-hailing giant, her reply was that she saw Didi's potential to make a "huge impact."

     She was right, of course, with Didi rising up to become one of the most highly valued tech companies in China. But there is another side to the story behind Didi's rise -- the huge impact Didi has had on the Chinese society also comes with huge regulatory risk. ... Click here to view the full text. 

*Angela Huyue Zhang is director of the Center for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong. She is author of "Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation."

AIIFL Newsletter Issue 4 (May 2021)

In AIIFL News this month, we highlight a range of publications and online appearances from the AIIFL team.

Douglas Arner

AIIFL Director | Email
 

HIGHLIGHTS

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Building Better Payment System

In the episode 3 of Looking Back Looking Forward, Douglas Arner discusses the progression of electronic payments, since its acceleration towards social development from the last hundred years, and recently towards the impact COVID-19 on global economies. The use of such payments co-developed throughout human history, from the telegraph to the automated teller machine (ATM) and, most notably, to the establishment of decentralised ledger technology (blockchain, bitcoin, etc.). Such innovative steps have encouraged the competition to raise the bar, such as DCEP, the world's first major currency central-bank digital currency in response to a more decentralised payment system.

 Watch it HERE

“Looking Back, Looking Forward” is a regular video segment launched in January 2020. For more information on the University of Hong Kong's financial technology programme and all the episodes of Looking Back Looking Forward, visit the FinTech Videos page and discover the transformation of information technology's ever-growing impact on finance.

PUBLICATIONS AND REPORTS

Selected articles, books and reports from the AIIFL team

Forming Transnational Dispute Settlement Norms: Soft Law and the Role of UNCITRAL's Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific

Shahla Ali

AFI Innovative Regulatory Approaches Toolkit

Douglas W.Arner, Ross P. Buckley, Dirk A. Zetzsche, Eriks Selga, Ghiyazuddin Mohammad, Jaheed Parvez, Roberta Consiglio

China and the Global Economic Architecture: Approaching the Challenges of the 2020s

Uzma Ashraf Barton and Douglas W. Arner

Sovereign Digital Currencies: Reshaping the Design of Money and Payments Systems

Ross P. Buckley, Douglas W. Arner, Dirk A. Zetzsche, Anton N, Didenko, Lucien van Romburg

Regulating Artificial Intelligence in Finance: Putting the Human in the Loop

Ross P. Buckley, Dirk A. Zetzsche, Douglas W. Arner, Brian Tang

Commercial Law Intersections

Giuliano G.Castellano and Andrea Tosato

‘Hub-and-Spoke’ Bid-rigging and Corporate Attribution under Hong Kong Competition Law

Kelvin Kwok

Applying ‘Deep ESG’ to Asian Private Equity

Frederick J. Long, Syren Johnstone

The Case for a Best Execution Principle in Cross-Border Payments

Dirk A. Zetzsche, Ross P. Buckley, Douglas W. Arner

SELECTED MEDIA

Bloomberg Documentary

Red Lines: China & Big Tech

China Talk

China's Anti-Monopoly Moment

Angela Zhang

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

Part 1 

Interviews with HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue, HKU Professor Douglas Arner, and PWC's Gary Ng.

Alliance for Innovative Regulation (AIR)

Barefoot Innovation Podcast

Around the World: HKU's Douglas Arner

EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES

30 June 2021

James Merralls Visiting Fellowship in Law Lecture

Digital Finance, COVID-19 and Existential Sustainability Crises: Building Better Financial Systems

hosted by Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne

Presenter: Douglas Arner, Kerry Holdings Professor in Law & AIIFL Director, HKU

Details and Registration

 

Oriol Caudevilla presented Digital Assets in Hong Kong: What are They and How are They Taxed at the AIIFL’s Taxation Law Research Programme (TLRP) (31 May 2021)

Details

Giuliano Castellano shared his research on Commercial Law Intersections at the 59th Forum Financial Market Regulation - The Fragmentation of Commercial Law: Challenges and Normative Approaches at the University of Zurich within the University Research Priority Program (URPP) on Financial Market Regulation (11 May 2021)

Details

Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) Virtual Discussion

Hong Kong as an International Financial Center

Douglas Arner

Syren Johnstone on Smart Regulation: Regulatory Framework for DLT-based Projects at the GBA Blockchain Week Virtual Summit (30-31 March 2021)

Watch HERE

 

Syren Johnstone on Perspectives on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Regulation at the University of Hawaii (22 March 2021)

Watch HERE

 

A team of five students from across different Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Lab (LITE Lab) courses won the HKU’s Faculty of Engineering Innovation Academy InnoSpark with VR Mock Court Pitch for Access to Justice (23 February 2021)

Details

JOIN US!

We are seeking to expand our world leading team in the area of FinTech, RegTech and Digital Finance.

 

Post-Doctoral Fellow in Finance, Technology and Regulation

Applications close: 31 July 2021, HK Time

 

More details and online application are available HERE.

 

Research Assistant Professor in FinTech / RegTech

Applications close: 30 June 2021, HK Time

 

The HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy, with the aim to cultivate interdisciplinary research in FinTech, has established a Research Assistant Professor Scheme. 

 

More details and online application are available HERE.

RGC Awards $5.96 Million in Research Funding to HKU Law 2021/22

Congratulations to our 9 colleagues who were successful in the 2021-2022 round of research grant funding by Hong Kong's Research Grants Council (RGC). Eight General Research Fund (GRF) projects were funded to study the development of investor dispute prevention mechanisms in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, the concept of “best interests” for the purpose of decision-making on behalf of individuals lacking mental capacity in Chinese jurisdictions, the role of peace movements in the 1899 creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the proliferation of International Commercial Courts across the globe, modern legal education reforms undertaken by three East Asian countries—Japan, Korea and China—meant to improve their legal professions by emphasizing postgraduate legal education, neighborhood governance in urban China, the emerging phenomenon of self-governance in the digital economy in China, and a medieval legal bestseller, the 'Statuta Vetera' Manuscript, c. 1280-1520.  An Early Career Scheme (ECS) project was funded to study the receptivity of socialist legal systems to the common law notion of precedent. 

    The details of the new funded projects are as follows:

GRF:

Professor Shahla Ali 

Is an Ounce of Prevention Worth a Pound of Cure? Assessing the Development of Dispute Prevention Mechanisms along the Belt and Road, HK$780,059

Ms Daisy Cheung

Deciding what is best for you: Best interest determinations on behalf of persons without capacity in the Chinese context, HK$443,426

Dr James Fry

The Role of Peace Movements in the 1899 Creation of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, HK$291,904

Dr Weixia Gu

The Global Rise of the International Commercial Courts: Power Dynamics and Transnational Legal Order, HK644,385

Dr Jed Kroncke

The Modern Re-Engineering of East Asian Lawyers, HK$540,881

Professor Shitong Qiao

The Authoritarian Commons: The Co-Evolution of Law and Social Norms in China's Urban Residential Neighborhoods, HK$1,255,474

Dr Angela Zhang

Decentralizing Platform Governance: Innovations from China, HK$656,825

Dr Anya Adair (cross appointed with Faculty of Arts)

The 'Statuta Vetera' Manuscript, c. 1280-1520: Production and Use of a Medieval Legal Bestseller, HK$599,209

ECS:

Dr Ben Chen, 

The Socialist Reception of Precedent: A Computational Analysis of Guiding Cases in the People’s Republic of China, HK$746,320

New Book by Angela Zhang: Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Will Challenge Global Regulation (OUP)

Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Will Challenge Global Regulation
Angela Zhang
Oxford University Press
Published on 11 March 2021
Overview: 

• Analyses Chinese antitrust law in the broader context of China's developing global economic presence
• Explores the ways in which bureaucratic missions, cultures, and structures of administrative agencies can play a crucial role in shaping the enforcement agenda, investigative approach, and final regulatory outcomes in China
• Describes how Chinese antitrust law can be transformed into a powerful economic weapon to counter aggressive U.S. sanctions
• Examines the new difficulties that Chinese firms will encounter as the U.S. and E.U. regulators tighten scrutiny over investment and trade from China

Description: China’s rise as an economic superpower has caused growing anxieties in the West. Europe is now applying stricter scrutiny over takeovers by Chinese state-owned giants, while the United States is imposing sanctions on leading Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, TikTok and WeChat. Given the escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West, are there any hopeful prospects for economic globalization?  In her compelling new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, Angela Zhang examines the most important and least understood tactic that China can deploy to counter western sanctions: antitrust law. Zhang reveals how China has transformed antitrust law into a powerful economic weapon, supplying theory and case studies to explain its strategic application over the course of the Sino-US tech war. Zhang also exposes the vast administrative discretion possessed by the Chinese government, showing how agencies can leverage the media to push forward aggressive enforcement. She further dives into the bureaucratic politics that spurred China’s antitrust regulation, providing an incisive analysis of how divergent missions, cultures and structures of agencies have shaped regulatory outcomes.  More than a legal analysis, Zhang offers a political and economic study of our contemporary moment. She demonstrates that Chinese exceptionalism—as manifested in the way China regulates and is regulated, is reshaping global regulation and that future cooperation relies on the West comprehending Chinese idiosyncrasies and China achieving greater transparency through integration with its western rivals.

Praises & Endorsements:

"Informed by legal analysis, game theory, and deep knowledge of both Chinese and Western legal practices, this valuable book provides a guide both to present-day controversies and to a more hopeful way forward."
  -Dani Rodrik

​"This is an excellent book on a hugely important issue... I recommend the book highly to anyone who has an interest in Chinese political economy."
  -Yasheng Huang

"The book is astute, engaging, and highly compelling."
  -Anu Bradford

"Required reading for anyone interested in China-West relations through the lens of law and real-world politics."
  - Noah Feldman
​
"Angela Zhang's new book ... fills a big gap in understanding the mystery of China."
  -Eleanor Fox

The launch of the new book: HKU's Centre for Chinese Law is pleased to announce the launch of a new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation by Dr Angela Huyue Zhang, published by Oxford University Press this week. This book explores the unique ways in which China regulates and is regulated by foreign countries, revealing a ‘Chinese exceptionalism’ that is reshaping the global antitrust regime. In this book, Dr Zhang dives deep into the unique Chinese political and economic institutions, examining bureaucratic politics, the power imbalances between businesses and the government, the highly decentralized economic system, and state-led governance. This allows her to explain the dilemmas foreign multinationals have faced in complying with Chinese antitrust law, as well as the difficulties Chinese firms have encountered overseas as US. and EU antitrust regulators tighten their scrutiny over Chinese businesses. Dr Zhang’s book has proven to be incredibly timely. In the past few months, China has taken unprecedented action to enforce antitrust regulations against its leading firms, such as the fintech conglomerate Ant Group and its affiliate Alibaba. Dr Zhang’s responses to these events have been quoted by numerous media outlets including the WSJ, Financial Times and the Economist, and her commentaries have appeared in Project Syndicate, Nikkei Asia, Fortune and Bloomberg. Recently, Dr Zhang was featured on CNBC, as well as the Economist’s virtual event on balancing innovation and regulation. Dr Zhang is an associate professor of law and the director of the Centre for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong. An award-winning legal scholar, Zhang is a highly sought-after commentator on Chinese antitrust issues. Before joining the University of Hong Kong, Dr Zhang taught at King’s College London and practiced law for six years in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She received her LLB from Peking University, and her LLM, JD and JSD from the University of Chicago Law School. Dr Zhang will be giving virtual book talks on April 16 at UPenn, April 19 at Harvard, and April 30 at Oxford. These events are free to attend and open to the public. Dr Zhang’s book is now available on Amazon, Book Depository, and OUP (30% discount with promotion code ALAUTHC4). More details on the book are available on a dedicated website.

Angela Zhang: China is Leaning into Antitrust Regulation to Stay Competitive with the US (Fortune)

"China is leaning into antitrust regulation to stay competitive with the U.S."

Angela Zhang

Fortune

Published on 9 Feb 2021

Introduction: The Ant Group is planning a major revamp in response to pressure from Chinese financial regulators, just three months after Jack Ma’s outspoken remarks against them. New antitrust rules concerning tech firms went into effect on Sunday. While Ma’s critical speech may have been the tipping point for the government to rein in Big Tech, there have been long-standing economic, social, and industrial policy issues that merit the government’s action. In fact, Beijing’s recent efforts to strengthen antitrust regulation in the tech sector are motivated by a larger goal: to become a technology superpower and achieve self-sufficiency so that China no longer needs to rely on the West... Click here to read the full text.

In the News: Director of HKU's Centre for Chinese Law, Dr Angela Zhang, Comments on Recent China Anti-trust Law Developments

Dr Angela Zhang, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Chinese Law, has been sharing her knowledge on Chinese anti-trust law and her views on the US-China relations.  A collection of her recent articles, interviews, and comments reported in the international media is found below:

· China is Leaning into Antitrust Regulation to Stay Competitive with the U.S., Fortune, 9 February 2021

· Why Is China Cracking Down on Alibaba?, Project Syndicate, 2 February 2021

· The Dangerous Legal War Posing a New Threat to China-US Relations, Nikkei Asia, 1 February 2021

· China's Alibaba Probe Is Not All Bad News , Nikkei Asia, 8 January 2021

· In China, Behave or Face a Campaign, Bloomberg, 7 January 2021

· Should China Wield Antitrust Laws to Counter US Attacks on Huawei Amid Global Tech Competition? South China Morning Post, May 26, 2020

· ByteDance’s Douyin Sues Tencent, Claiming Antitrust Violations, krASIA, 3 February, 2021

· China Antitrust: ByteDance and Tencent Legal Battle Seen as Potential Landmark Case, South China Morning Post, 3 February, 2021

· ByteDance Files Lawsuit Against Tencent in Tit-for-tat Battle, Financial Times, 3 February, 2021

· China’s Big Tech Clampdown: Why Some Businesses Stand to Benefit, Aljazeera, 26 January, 2021

· China is Joining the Global Push to Rein in Tech Giants, The Wall Street Journal, 24 January, 2021

· Why China’s Central Bank Leads Antitrust Drive and How this May Affect Alipay, WeChat Pay, South China Morning Post, 22 January  2021

· China’s Approval of Cisco-Acacia Deal Conditional on Fair Competition but also an Olive Branch to Joe Biden, South China Morning Post, 22 January, 2021

· China’s Startups Hope Tech Crackdown Creates New Opportunities, Bloomberg, 21 January , 2021

· Crackdown on Jack Ma’s Empire Gathers Pace Despite Reappearance, Financial Times, 21 January, 2021

· Do Fintech Giants Alipay and WeChat Pay have Monopoly Power? China’s New Regulation Leaves Experts Guessing, South China Morning Post, 21 January, 2021

· China’s Central Bank Proposes Antitrust Rules for Country’s Booming Online Payments Sector, Pandaily, 21 January, 2021

· China's Crackdown on Alibaba Goes Beyond Teaching Jack Ma a Lesson, S&P Global Market Intelligence, 19 January , 2021

· Trump’s Final Days Bring New Turmoil to U.S.-China Relations​, Bloomberg, 12 January, 2021

· China Brings in New Law to Fight Trump's Sanctions, BBC, 11 January, 2021

· China Launches Measures to Protect Companies from US Sanctions, Financial Times, 10 January, 2021

· Jack Ma's Absence Raises More Questions than it Answers Amid Ant and Alibaba Probe, The Straits Times, 9 January, 2021

· "Alibaba Antitrust Probe Presents New Challenges for China’s Regulators 12 Years after Implementation of Anti-monopoly Law", South China Morning Post, 7 January, 2021

· "Jack Ma was Almost Bigger than China. That's What Got Him into Trouble", CNN Business, 6 January, 2021

· "China’s Mighty State Monopolies Cast a Big Shadow over Private Enterprise, but will Antitrust Law and Vows of Reform Level the Playing Field?", South China Morning Post, 5 January , 2021

· "Mo money, Ma problems - Chinese Trustbusters’ Pursuit of Alibaba is only the Start", The Economist, 2 Jan 2021

· "Alibaba: a Chinese Success Story comes under Scrutiny", TRT World, 25 December, 2020

· "全球掀起反壟斷風潮　何時輪到香港？", 香港01, 21 December, 2020

· "Don't Expect an 'Explosion of Cases' from China's Antitrust Push: Professor", cnbc.com, 23 November , 2020