Not Yet the End of Transnational Digital Capitalism: A Communication Perspective of the U.S.–China Decoupling Rhetoric

Authors

  • Min Tang School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington

Keywords:

U.S.–China decoupling, digital capitalism, financialization, global political economy

Abstract

The interlinks of ICT industries between the United States and the People’s Republic of China reveal the complexity of the U.S.–China decoupling rhetoric, seen here from a critical political economy approach. The highly interdependent and symbiotic value chain between these two countries throughout hardware production, software provision, and capital investments may pose challenges to the decoupling motif. Also proposed is the concept of financialization of ICTs as a foundational mode of reproduction in the contemporary global political economy, where the United States and China are the two most active and engaged actors. Whereas decoupling is neither inevitable nor foreordained, complexity and uncertainty persist in terms of how both nations respond to crises.

Author Biography

Min Tang, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington

Min Tang is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington Bothell. She holds a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A critical political economy scholar, Dr. Tang studies how capitalist relations and power structures shape the provision system of communication and information in our society. She is the author of Tencent: The Political Economy of China’s Surging Internet Giant (Routledge, 2019).

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Published

2022-02-27

Issue

Vol. 16 (2022)

Section

Articles

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