All events listed here are manually curated for readers of What’s on Weibo, with a focus on Chinese (digital) culture, language, society, history, and broader China insights. Many of these events are hosted around the world.
✉️ If you want to add an event, send me a message at manya[@]whatsonweibo.com
📘 Book Launch: Governing Digital China
📅 Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
🕒 Time: 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM CEST
📍 Location: Virtual event via Microsoft Teams (hosted by the Centre for Digital Governance, Hertie School)
🌐 Organizers: Hertie School – Centre for Digital Governance
Languages: English
Registration & Info: Free with registration – Hertie School Events
🏷️ Description:
This online launch event introduces Governing Digital China, a new book by Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Drawing on fieldwork, national surveys, and digital governance theory, the book challenges assumptions of top-down authoritarian control and reveals how platform firms and citizens shape China’s digital ecosystem. The conversation will include commentary from discussant Phil Howard (Oxford), with a focus on the relationship between state, tech firms, and society in China’s evolving digital landscape.
📖 About the Book:
China’s approach to digital governance has gained global influence, often evoking Orwellian “Big Brother” comparisons. Governing Digital China challenges this perception, arguing that China’s model is more participatory than commonly understood. The book explores the logic of popular corporatism, documenting how tech firms like Tencent, Sina, Baidu, and Alibaba act as consultants to the state—while also responding to citizen demands. Based on extensive fieldwork and nationally representative surveys, the authors map out how governance and resistance emerge from interactions between the Party, tech platforms, and users in a digitally authoritarian system.
Topics: Digital Governance, China Tech Policy, Platform-State Relations, Authoritarianism, Political Communication