Anu Bradford on Big Tech, AI, digital regulation, and more

Anu Bradford shows how China is expanding its digital footprint globally, highlights barriers to US tech regulation, 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 Anu Bradford, Professor of Law and International Organization at Columbia Law School and the author, most recently, of [Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology](. To read the full interview – in which she highlights barriers to US tech regulation, explains why effective implementation of the EU’s AI Act is vital, shows how China is expanding its digital footprint globally, and more – [click here](. Anu Bradford Says More... Syndicate: While China is committed to winning the technology race against the US, it has [not shied away]( from regulating the digital economy. In your new book, [Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology]( you describe the Chinese regulatory model as having “many features that are unique to its digital authoritarian governance regime” as well as “some elements of the European rights-driven and the American market-driven regulatory models.” How effectively has China’s government balanced these approaches, and what can the US and the EU learn from its efforts? Anu Bradford: The Chinese government’s regulatory strategy is guided by the economic and geopolitical imperative to turn China into a technological superpower. The Communist Party of China (CPC) also uses technology for censorship and surveillance, in order to maintain social stability and unrivaled political control. But China shares some policy objectives... [Continue reading]( [PS. Explore the latest issue of our magazine, PS Quarterly: At Arms.]( By the Way... PS: In Digital Empires, you describe the “horizonal battles” between the US, China, and the EU, from the US-China tech war to the US-EU regulatory contest. These battles complicate – and are complicated by – the “vertical battles vis-à -vis the tech companies operating in their markets.” How do these battles intersect, and how can governments reconcile the “various, and at times conflicting, imperatives” that they create? AB: In the horizontal battles, the competing governments still need each other, in order to protect their tech firms’ commercial interests abroad. Consider the unfolding US-China tech war: the US government wants to hamper China’s technological progress, but it also needs to preserve US companies’ access to China’s large and lucrative market. The US export-control regime illustrates this tension well: because a complete export ban would carry high costs, US firms can... [Continue reading]( [PS Say More: Joseph S. Nye, Jr., on Chinese power, US politics, the new cold war, and more]( [Joseph S. Nye, Jr., on Chinese power, US politics, the new cold war, and more]( Joseph S. Nye, Jr., considers how China undermines its own soft power, traces the potential causes of a war over Taiwan, welcomes Europe’s embrace of “smart” power, and more. Nye is a professor at Harvard University, a former US assistant secretary of defense, and the author, most recently, of [Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump](. [Read now]( [PS. Subscribe to PS Digital now.]( [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](.