Recommended Citation
Jane K. Winn, Social Networks and Electronic Commerce in China, 31 Global Econ. Rev. 21 (2002), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/164
Publication Title
Global Economic Review
Keywords
e-commerce
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Communication technologies that make up the emerging global information infrastructure have the power to regulate online behavior. Social networks in Chinese society have survived the growth of formal legal institutions and liberalization of China's economy, but it is not clear whether they can survive the regulatory pressures created by global information technology networks.
The spread of electronic commerce technologies in China may strengthen legal institutions and open local markets to international competition, but is likely to be resisted by all the same interests that resist those changes in other contexts. The Chinese response to the spread of electronic commerce might take several forms: assimiliation; marginalization; or localization of new forms of commercial activity that rely on new technologies.