Domestic debates on China’s global impact, with Alexander Davey and Kristin Shi-Kupfer

This is the Marx-China podcast. 2025 has seen the Chinese government shedding its hedging stance towards the geopolitical situation and acting with increasing confidence in its own power and agency on the international stage. Today the Marx-China podcast is casting a spotlight on debates inside of China to see whether this newfound confidence is mirrored in domestic debates and Chinese self-perceptions. My name is Johannes L.A. Jung and today I am very happy to be joined by my colleague, Marx-Elec Seller, Alexander Davy and my former colleague and current professor for Synology at the University of Trier, Kristinshi Kupfer. Together with Kristina Zadila of Marx and Wutauwen from the University of Trier, they are the co-authors of the report China's domestic debates, the shadow of geopolitics, have used about the economy, commercial culture and trending topics reveal self-perceptions. The report and this podcast are part of the China Spectrum, a joint project of the China Institute of the University of Trier and Merriks and supported by the Friedrich Nauma Foundation for Freedom. And with that, Kristina Daleks, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having us. Good to be here. I wanted to start off with a more general question and I'll address this to you, Kristina. Could you tell us what the space for expert and public debate is currently like in China? Well, the space for public and expert discussion keeps shrinking. The Chinese government, again this year, has put out some new measures, has enacted campaigns to really keep controlling and shrinking the space. Still we do see increasingly also contested debates. We also noted a totality of really frustration and even really pessimism in terms of China's future and also the future by young urban Chinese who typically would participate in this public debates. For the latest methods or regulations of the Chinese government, let me maybe just give you two examples. One is an ongoing campaign which the Chinese part estate does on a regular basis to rectify. So to say the internet to clean up the internet and the latest one is specifically targeting content which is too pessimistic, spreading panic, is trying to bring up the masses as the official language. But it's against the current social situation and they have been a couple of accounts being a close down because of being too pessimistic or too negative, which is also interesting because this is exactly also how we observe the current online debates. So there's a real sense of given the high unemployment rate or the ongoing ailing economy and the increased pressure and competition that is perceived that indeed there is quite a lot of resignation and pessimism. So the really important measure is also the so called web ID and national internet ID system which is voluntarily kind of enacted right now but could become mandatory which would enable the central party state to really track online behavior across platforms because currently you can use the register with different platforms in different ways but that would be one national online ID which could be used on all platforms and would prevent fraud. That's all the Chinese government is kind of arguing about it but could be much more convenient for the party state to really track activities across online platforms. And our colleagues Altenay and Sova and Wendy Chang have written a nice comment on this as well. I will link this in the show notes. Definitely developments to look out for. For now however I think I'll take a step back and go back to the report that you offered. You analyze two developments in that that have captured the attention of domestic and international audiences. There's the one hand there's so called evolution in the Chinese economy and then the globalization of Chinese culture products. Looking at evolution first in your part you define it as zero sum competition for market share where increased investments produce only stagnant or even shrinking profits so kind of a cut throat competition in the market. When you see this play out in different sectors for example one way you describe it is as companies engage in subsidy driven price wars and tolerate losses to win customers from competitors so kind of they destroying themselves however it is worth it if they can just take some customers from the competitor. This would be can be seen in competition among e-commerce platforms and for example their food delivery services in China. The way you describe it is when local governments raise to subsidize the same key industries that are promoted by the central government and then kind of have like this effect there like this just too many competitors in the market that are subsidized by these local governments. You see this in electric vehicles or solar panels or batteries. Before we turn to what people think of this development which I then would address to Alex I wanted to ask you Christine. I read in the report that this term in evolution actually has quite an interesting history behind it and before I was adopted by the Chinese government in 2024 2025. Could you tell us a little bit about that. Thank you for the question Janus we have been indeed reviewing this also while we were preparing the report it has been initially much more used as an internet slang. We roughly could trace it back to 2008 he has become very popular in 2020 while Chinese young urban workers oftentimes also see in the IT industry but also migrant workers participating we're sharing about their heavy competition internally it was linked also to the so called 996 work model way would work from 9 to 9 for 6 days a week. And really people sharing their heart about the tough competition also in university in schools we also had suicides linked to that whole. And then we can get a good score to get into a good high school so this was basically a term not been used firstly according to our assessment by the party state but by netizens young urban Chinese to express their feeling of pressure of frustration due to an indeed internal. And this has been picked up by the government to describe slightly different but also kind of over competition Alex you did some analysis on this what do people think of this the zero some competition and what role do they see for for the government in addressing it. So on this idea of evolution in terms of the Chinese economy and this zero some gain or race to the bottom you know it's a bit of a sense of space we looked at experts who discussed this and we kind of wanted to look at it in a way that they could talk about it and that's where the solutions to evolution. Rather than maybe looking at the original reasons why or what this why the system produces this kind of cut third competition and it's more framing it as or to understand where they see the answers and I think that gives them a little bit more space to talk about it and we saw you know two main narratives about how to deal with this issue and the first narrative is about restraining local governments. And basically this is to try and say hey stop supporting businesses in your jurisdiction so much you know you need to treat companies more fairly whether they're in your jurisdiction or not and this would involve you know reforming the incentives systems of local government officials to you know instead of just looking for pure economic growth in their local area and retaining jobs at the companies. It's more about doing what's best for the whole country rather than just their local area and so there's a tension there and but you could know that you could see that this is like quite sensitive because it is you know telling the government how to to run things and so you saw a lot more experts talking about the idea of regulating company behaviors and so you know that they should focus on R&D and strengthening IP protection or that they they need to not. Set their prices so low and they need to have like you know minimum pricing but you know this can also be seen as meddling in companies private behavior and then there was a third kind of narrative from the experts about you know ramping up consumer demand if people bought more they kind of if the demand was higher this race from the supply side wouldn't be so bad and and this was kind of just you know filling in with this. with this note that that Chinese government wants to increase consumer demand and consumer spending, which has been a major problem for a long time. But it was interesting to see that there were different views and that more or less there was debate about this as an issue and knowing that not only domestically is it having a problem with companies' profit margins being raised or thin, but also on the international scene that this is really problematic for companies who are trying to compete with Chinese companies. And find it so difficult to do so. So it's interesting that from outside we see it as a problem, but also they also have it as a problem for their own domestic economy, regardless of what we think. So that was quite interesting. You just mentioned that you can see this development of issues happening inside China's drawing criticism inside China, but they're also having an effect internationally. And I think this is a main topic of this report that the kind of the separation of developments inside China and developments outside China is kind of breaking down. This is increasingly having an effect both ways. And the second topic that you looked at kind of placed into this as well, the topic is concerned with the global cultural exports of China. China is for a long time produced kind of the merchandise of global brands, of kind of also American cultural exports if you think of like action figures or plush toys from Disney or something like all these. Kind of what we connect with like American iconography, American cultural exports. But now increasingly China has also cultural trends that go global. And of one case in point is the Laboobu craze. So these are our little monster toys that have drawn international attention. And maybe you can say more about that. The other one would be for example, of global chains, of global markets like Timo, Shane becoming globally famous or maybe rather infamous, that have kind of exceeded China and become like a global phenomenon as well. What do you see in debates in China about these trends? How are they looking at this globalization of Chinese cultural exports, Alex? Thanks, China. So the approach that we took to this was that there, like you said, there seems to be a fading of the distinction between the domestic and international and that like with the evolution being both a domestic and international issue, China's commercial cultural exports are kind of an expanding of what it's doing domestically going abroad. And regarding debates on this, we saw netizens seeing that there is a moment, and there is a moment where like you said, like Laboobu's or other cultural exports such as DeepSeek, AI, where people are changing their patterns of behavior by using large language models. We see the Wukong, Blacksmith Wukong, the first AAA video game coming out of China by game science. And so these kind of, these successes are being picked up by netizens online, and they talk about how can we continue the success on what can we do. And so some of them talk about the problems with the rigid state kind of bureaucratic feel of external propaganda, and actually sometimes when we try and talk to an international audience, it actually is really more for a domestic audience to show how they want to be perceived in the global stage. And it's not very natural. And so they talk about looking for more authentic or natural forms of creativity in this cultural sense. And so it's a very natural sphere. And mainly I'm talking about commercial or mainstream products and that through spontaneity, through non-interference and allowing these companies to navigate the cultural sphere themselves that they will be successful naturally. Others talk about China's economic might, grows that you don't need to do anything. That will flow from it naturally. But yeah, there is always this kind of element of control and steerage that you can see netizens complain about. And it's also interesting because it does connect to the evolution aspect because the internal competition does allow for sometimes for winners to come through. But then again, because of the subsidies or the input from local governments, they might want to say and how it goes abroad. And so it's a lot of contradictions here. And it also means that there will be a lot of failures. And you know, it's yet to be seen if this labooboo can become like a Hello Kitty phenomenon, where it's everlasting or if it's a flash in the pan and it fades away. But no, certainly there is an awareness among Chinese netizens that there is more noticing of their exports. And whether that will continue, it will be linked to the idea of evolution, but also to see how much state interference or not there is going forward. I think it's also interesting in that sense because this is contrasting yet with the more pessimistic, frustrated, tonality when we look at the domestic situation of China and future prospects. This is more really like a positive uptick. There is a notion of pride, of constructive, so to say patriotism, right? And I think the contrast that Alex just mentioned is really striking. Basically, all the reasons for failure of those kinds of cultural experts are attributed to an official attempt, very stiff and very scripted to really push Chinese culture towards the outside world while all the reasons for success are really attributed more to a people-driven storytelling creativity, as Alex mentioned. So probably when we look at the ongoing campaign, that would be something that the Chinese government would probably also target as being too negative or creating an opposition towards the party state effort. So in that sense, it's also really an interesting, as I said, positive uptick, but also again stressing the point that there is a lot of doubt to put it mildly against party state efforts in that realm. After this short, positive uptick, that's a turn or gaze to something that has not developed very positively. And that is kind of the Chinese perception of the United States. So I said in the beginning that you looked at two issues, we looked at debates, inflation, and this global cultural exports, but you actually looked at the third topic and did media analysis there. To look at how the perception of the US and US China relations has changed in the last year. So the last year, this report came out a couple of weeks ago, saw the US elections, the incoming Trump administration, and all the things that float from that. Christine, maybe I can give this to you. What did you find in this analysis on the US China relations? Yes, happy to elaborate on that. So we looked at a platform, which is a news aggregation platform called TOTAL. So this platform, the algorithm basically creates important or hot news in terms of both from party state and media, but also commercial media, or sometimes even user created, influencer created, and we looked at a data set both from last year to 2024, and this year, 2025, January to August. We looked at the headlines and did basically a narrative or a topic analysis. And we found, overall, that the mention of the United States increased this year, while, for example, the whole Russia Ukraine conflict was a bit more toned down, interestingly, also, although that might have been changed in the latest week. Has not been mentioned in the first eight months as much as the year before. And overall, we saw an uptick also of the recognition or the global South as a newsy item. Regarding the United States, though, very clearly, and this has not been a big change, but rather a trend that has become more amplified this year. The US as a failing state in terms of how the United States also deals with natural disasters, the fires at the beginning of this year, but also overall, really a system that is collapsing, their social disorder, government failures, the shutdown, which has been very much glooming over the US for a long time. And also, in terms of really mocking the leaders, not taking Trump very, very serious, also the drama within the US government. government, the internal, so to say leaks of, of Chats, signal group chats, for example. So all those different elements basically saying this is a state that is failing, that is harbing itself by its ridiculous economic policies. And China then is a rational, a much more reliable counterpart. This was then used as a contrast to say, and again this has been one of the few positive optics in online debates and also expert debates by positioning China as a constructive global player while the US is basically failing and harming itself, but also retreating from the global community not willing to take a constructive stance in world affairs. I thought this was the main point that Christian just spoke about being about the US and the amplification of this as a topic. I thought also an interesting secondary result from the analysis was the more regionalization of topics that there was a more East Asian, Southeast Asian emphasis on topics discussed of foreign countries and less global, less Ukraine, less Israel-Palestine and much more focused about China's neighborhood. And that was quite interesting and also recently spoke to a colleague who did some research on Chinese foreign visits from a province leadership and their research showed something similar about this move towards closer regional visits. And I found this kind of parallel fascinating and wondering why there was a more interest of closer to home rather than this global move we saw over the past couple years. So this was a nice secondary result that also came out of the analysis from Tri-Air, which we really enjoyed reading. Super important Alex, thank you so much for mentioning it. So unfortunately, to say Europe really doesn't play a role at least in the total topical framing, right? We were looking for topics regarding France or Germany or the EU, which is really marginal. And sometimes the US mentioned as a player, which is also not behaving very constructively. And a more positive, so to say, framing has only been Europe as a nice travel destination, right? As a cultural museum, right? This more, more region, which is kind of interesting to look to when it comes to leisure or the past, but not for innovation or for really a player that has been trying constructively to impact the world or the digital innovation ongoing. Maybe quickly before I move to our final question on the spectral project in general, I post the question in the beginning, whether we can see in these debates and in this analysis, a mirroring of the increased confidence that the Chinese state is acting with on the international stage. Do you have the impression, after looking at all these different debates and data, that there is kind of an increasing self-confidence and self-perception among the Chinese population and among experts? Yeah, I mean, it's hard. This is a chicken and egg situation because you do see an increasingly confidence voice coming from the state in its interactions with the world. But then you also see it online and a bit more pride. And it could be also pride from people who are not happy with their leadership or their government, but pride to be being Chinese. And it's very hard to distinguish that and it's also hard to distinguish which comes first. They may happen in parallel because there are these successes or these wins, but there are also the government might be speaking in parallel and it just happens to be simultaneous. But there's also a pride that could be maybe about its global image, but then also on the happiness of what's happening domestically and saying that I don't like that my career or my job or my salary or that things I used to be able to do, I'm less so able to do. But there are, it is to hold these multiple realities at the same time that there is maybe a happiness or a pride around about being where they are in the world, but also when you talk about the individual level that it could be solely an erosion of their place in society. So to hold those two together I think is really important and to kind of just grasp this essence that is always changing in analyzing debates. I think this is a really important element here that those things unfold in parallel, right? And this is an ongoing pattern. We had this nationalistic venting which is also normally very much supported if it's not becomes too aggressive by the party state. On the one hand, while on the other hand, people have been getting increasingly frustrated about their own personal prospects and frustrated with how the government handles or not handles an economic policy in that sense. Well, that would also enable more consumption. We have seen that debates about whether or not the Chinese government should prioritize investment into high tech or should rather use some of the money to substantially increase social security for Chinese workers and urban as well as rural. So, but I think what is really new to my mind, Alex, but please also come in here again, this pride in terms of being and in advance more, you know, technologically ready country to face what it needs to be successful in terms of digital technologies on the one hand side. And really in terms of the culture products, I think that's also something new that we haven't seen so much before because I think in previous times, nationalistic pride was also a lot more in terms of discriminating against other countries steered up by anti-Japanese or anti-US sentiment. I mean, there isn't, it starts so much an anti-US sentiment to some degree. I think there's really more witnessing of the US being a failing state, right? Where it's also some degree of shot and fighter, but much more in that sense of wow, this is unfolding really very quickly and also some netizens also expressed, I think, very similar to to us in Europe, just being puzzled, right? By the sheer speed and all this contradictions and irrational, so to say, or a very ego-driven behavior by the current US president. But I think really this pride in terms of there is, there is, our culture has been recognized and we're really an advanced country paying more attention to digital technologies. I think that's something we haven't seen that much in previous times. Yeah, I think this move from a defensive pride to a more, I don't know, optimistic or more seeing these wins on the world stage is different. It's always been very sensitive and very reflexive and reactionary. And so this is quite interesting and it's hard to pinpoint what it is exactly, but I think that Kristen also really mentions this, you know, China, these wins are gradual and it's not like something random out of nowhere, but what's happening around the rest of the world is that kind of the stagnation in other countries, it makes China rise or wins on the global stage seem much bigger because of the kind of falling back. And I find that really interesting that what's happening in these industrial wins or technological wins are like, they're ticking forward gradually, but the gap is really because of what's not there from other countries in competition. It's created the space for this change to move from a reflexive to a kind of pride that is seen through these cultural and industrial wins. I think this takes away a little bit of the next question I wanted to ask already because it is one of the developments that we've seen in the last months and the last couple of years. The spectrum report has been going on for four years now. This is closing the fourth year. And my question to you in closing will be, what have you seen in these four years? How much change is in these expert and public debates that you've seen and also maybe speak to the value of keeping analyzing these debates going forward? I think really what stands out for me that thanks to the China Spectrum project, we have been able to early on witness ongoing or increasing as we've shared frustration or imbalances within China, which also has been erupting, I mean, most clearly in 2022, the white paper was in 2021. the white paper, protest movement, this has been something if you would have looked as systematic as we were able to do into online debates that there were early warning signs that there is a growing frustration with the harsh lockdown at that point in time, but overall also with at that point in time really grapple economic shrinking spaces and also this whole evolution topic. So we I think really China spectrum and apart from all of course also the the bot interference and the party state manipulation of online debates, I think they still really have proven to be valuable in terms of a seismographic so to say to some degree at least element in terms of being able to more clearly grasp some of the pain points that Chinese society is experiencing and also some of us have been able to to go back and get also get offered on the ground and we also kind of anecdotically these were able to kind of verify that these are indeed ongoing trends and topics that Chinese within China also really really have a concern it's not only an online venting but it's because we don't have offline spaces, saloons or you know really spaces where you could debate those things offline. So the online sphere really has been an important space to look at in terms of where could be pain points or where a societal discontent that has again and again also after the white paper movement have been has erupted into smaller also worker driven labor protests or again we've seen the reaction of the Chinese government to to crack down on on various online and offline development. So this is really something that that for me kind of stood out that really has been valuable in terms of being able to identify some of the yeah so to say pain points and major or minor eruptions or ruptures that we have been seeing looking at the Chinese society. I think for me that over the few years is that seeing the gap the gap between what the state says and then what the people say and this gap is really interesting to show that the difference and that I mean someone as someone who looks at party documents and what the official narratives are it's easy to get lost and think that this is the one reality that exists and seeing these other voices and and and human voices of citizens is really interesting and really good to see the distance between official and grassroots voices and that is a very good way of like grounding myself as a researcher but also someone who's interested and really you know wants to know what's going on there and I think that also leads me to the idea that it also humanizes that that that it's not just a block it's not a monolith we're talking about the humanity of people's lives and that they want to get along and they have friends and family and they go to eat and do stuff and they have struggles just like we do and that sense of it also was very important for me to engage with with the project in a way that showed that there are similarities and there and and while there are also different differences and constraints in living under different system and that was very important for me to also kind of stay grounded and engage with China on a topic and and is is very good for reflexivity as a researcher to to to always check in and check that there are different viewpoints and different ways of understanding China from from a citizen's perspective. Yes, thank you very much for this call to keeping in mind the human side of of engaging with China apart from all necessary political engagement that we have is I think very important and thank you Alex for bringing up this point. Thank you Christine and Alex for for joining the podcast for bringing all your thoughts to the table for you the insights that you provided. Thank you for joining. Thank you Anas. Thank you for having us. Thank you. And Dylissner if you want to know more about the research that Christine and Alex are doing put a links to their research profiles in the show notes. As always thank you for the sitting and until next time goodbye.