Inclusion or expulsion

Digital technologies and the new power relations in China’s “Internet finance”

Bibliographic Data

ID13019575
AuthorsWang Jing (0000-0001-6545-6859, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume3
Issue1
Pages34-45
Publication date2018-02-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCommunication and the Public (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2057-0473 • E-ISSN: 2057-0481
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/2057047318755528
OpenAlexW2792492851
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited36

The financial sector in China is well known as a government-dominated hierarchy, and the access to financial services has been controlled primarily by the state-run banks. Fin-tech businesses, or so-called “Internet finance,” in China have included new actors such as Internet companies, small and medium enterprises, and small lay investors in the financial regime. The new entrants’ technology-mediated interactions with the government engendered new politico-economic relations within and beyond the market, in the cyberspace and in everyday life. How have the Chinese modes of financial inclusion reconfigured the power relations between the state, corporations, and the investing public in China? Through the political-economic analyses of three specific forms of fin-tech businesses—third-party payment, peer-to-peer lending, and money market fund this article argues that Chinese fin-techs have enabled a broader societal participation to investment practices and empowered Internet corporations alongside the state-controlled financial systems. Thus, such an inclusion is less about the “inclusive finance” endorsed by the World Bank for the under-represented social groups’ accesses to financial services. It is more of a technology-facilitated financialization initiated by the state, promoted by information technology companies, and popularized among small investors. Rather than leading to the decentralization of financial power, China’s fin-tech has formed a higher level of concentration of financial capital controlled by the Chinese oligopoly Internet corporations. Moreover, the collaborations and competitions between the growing fin-tech companies and the state-owned financial sector deserve further observations

Business · China · Economics · Financial inclusion · Financial services · Financial system · Financialization · Government (linguistics · Market economy · Political science · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Finance

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