Angela Huyue Zhang on Chinese innovation, regulation, AI, and more

Angela Huyue Zhang warns that China’s lax approach to AI could lead to a crisis, considers how Western regulatory trends influence China, and more. The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Say More]( This week in Say More, PS talks with Angela Huyue Zhang, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Philip K. H. Center for Chinese Law at the University of Hong Kong, and the author of [High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs its Economy](. To read the full interview – in which she warns that China’s lax approach to regulating artificial intelligence could lead to a crisis, highlights the impact of the market’s deep-seated mistrust of the Chinese legal system, considers how Western regulatory trends influence China, and more – [click here](. [Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking]( By Van Jackson “Jackson provides scholars, students, policymakers, and analysts with an invaluable map of 'state of the art’ in progressive thinking about foreign policy…[and] offers his own, bold vision for a grand strategy worthy of progressive values. This is a must-read for anyone – left, right, or center – interested in US foreign policy.” – Daniel Nexon, Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University Sponsored by Cambridge University Press Angela Huyue Zhang Says More... [Michael Spence]( Syndicate: China has a “strong reason to regulate” tech platforms, you write in your forthcoming book, [High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy]( not least because its platform economy has “grown to be very unruly.” If Alibaba’s “forced restructuring” last year was [not the right way]( to rein in a firm that had grown too large, how should the authorities have addressed monopoly concerns? Angela Huyue Zhang: The Chinese antitrust authorities should have intervened much earlier to curb the rapid expansion of leading tech firms like Alibaba and Tencent. Instead, they allowed acquisitions by these giants to proceed with little regulatory oversight, let alone constraints, for over a decade. For Chinese firms, the key to circumventing the government’s investment restrictions was... [Continue reading]( By the Way... PS: A number of “seemingly random policies” that the Chinese government has introduced since 2020, you write in High Wire, “are all connected by a common desire to combat inequality.” Which of those policies has been – or is likely to be – particularly effective, and which are misguided? AHZ: All these policies appear to be well-intentioned, but the way the government has gone about implementing them has led to serious unintended consequences. Because of the power imbalance between business and government in China, any negative policy signal can... [Continue reading]( [PS Say More: Nina L. Khrushcheva on Navalny, Putin, Russian elections, and more]( [Nina L. Khrushcheva on Navalny, Putin, Russian elections, and more]( Nina L. Khrushcheva argues that seizing Russia’s central-bank assets would harm the West’s international reputation, highlights cracks in the Russian regime, calls warnings that Vladimir Putin plans to invade NATO irresponsible, and more. Khrushcheva is Professor of International Affairs at The New School. [Read now]( [PS. Save 30% on a new Digital subscription with our special introductory offer.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. Receipt of this newsletter does not guarantee rights to re-publish any of its content. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.