Abstract
Nearly two decades ago, Castells (2002) put forward a case in his reflective essay book, The Internet Galaxy, saying that the internet is not just a technology, rather, it is the backbone of the new economy and the network society. The internet, as the technological basis of the information age, connects all aspects of our life into a web, domestically and internationally. China, though often (mis)considered as a latecomer to the information age, has incubated many world-renowned internet companies in its last 40 years of economic development. Tencent, as one of the most valuable, publicly traded internet giants in China, is worth investigating to fully understand both the internet and China. Building on the political economy of a case study, Tang (2019) examines the mysterious internet giant, focusing on the enabling, shaping and conditioning process in which Tencent has developed.
Drawn from massive and tremendous government and trade documents, both primary and secondary, the author leads readers through the Tencent journey by dividing her book into four major parts: (1) the institutional and regulatory context within which Tencent has developed; (2) Tencent’s economic profile with a focus on the influence of transnational capital and early-stage foreign investment in Tencent’s corporate structure and corporate strategies; (3) Tencent’s political profile in terms of its founders’ upbringing and education as well as Tencent’s ownership and control; and (4) Tencent’s cultural profile with descriptions of Tencent’s major products such as QQ, Wechat and its popular games.
Without any doubt, Tencent has emerged in a historical context, primarily domestic but also global (Tang, 2019). In the chapter, “History and Context,” the author details the history of building network infrastructures and telecommunication services in China and details them in four major stages. The preparation stage, from 1987 to 1993, focuses on government-funded science and technology research. The second stage, from 1994 to 1995, witnessed a wave of fundamental network infrastructures set up by academic, governmental and primary commercial institutes. The third stage, namely the internet as industrialization, from 1996 to 2010, constituted the rapid development of the internet industry in China, during which many phenomenal changes happened. The fourth stage, from 2011 till the present, is called the internet as a pillar industry. In 2011, the central government approved the 12th Five-Year Plan on national economic restructuring after the 2008 global financial crisis, and highlighted the importance of ICTs to boost domestic production and consumption. Furthermore, the term Internet Plus was coined, which refers to the state’s plan to build a network of banks, financial services, e-commerce, entertainment and other daily services around mobile internet, cloud computing and big data technologies. The review of the four critical stages in the development of China’s internet industry conveys a clear message: Tencent’s birth and success as an Internet giant benefited from the network infrastructures and telecommunication services led by the Chinese government in its early days.
However, Tencent is not a state-owned company. To make that point clear, the author delves into its funding sources and corporate structures in the chapters, “Economic Profile” and “Political Profile.” Invested by IDG venture China and the Hongkong based telecommunication giant PCCW in its early stage, Tencent was born as a transnational internet company. What is more, the investment firm, Naspers Ltd, whose parent company is the South Africa-based media corporation MIH, initiated an investment in Tencent in 2001. Since then, Naspers Ltd remains the largest shareholder in Tencent, which not only reinforces the fact that Tencent is not a state-owned company, but also demonstrates its close connections with global nodes. It is revealed that, in a fashion quite similar to the American internet giants, Tencent has been expanding its portfolios through horizontal and vertical integration along with diversification at both the national and international levels. Following the economic and political aspects of Tencent, the author goes on to talk about Tencent’s major products since it was set up. Though the author offers a clear illustration of these products, it would have been much better if the “cultural elements” of Tencent’s products had been described and analysed in the chapter, “Cultural Profile,” since Tencent offers a unique, transformative online community.
In 2018, the founder and CEO of Tencent, Ma Huateng, published a book in Chinese called China at Your Fingertips: Mobile Internet and Social Shifts in a Developing Power. It is clearly shown in Tang’s book that China could not be as it seems today without the telecommunication and network infrastructure initiatives led by the government along with the policy of opening up the Chinese market to attract foreign venture capital investment. As summarized by Tang (2019), a major contribution of this book is a theoretical reconceptualization of the role of the state in the political economy of internet studies. A second important contribution of this study is to display Tencent as a transnational Chinese Internet company almost by creation through the author’s thorough view of Tencent’s capital structure and corporate governance. Third, through the case of Tencent, it is shown that China’s Internet industry is multifaceted and dynamic, and that it redefines and is redefining social relations and forms of production and consumption.
Tencent, as one of the most successful components in the fast-growing Internet industry in China, is only one of the ways to understand the internet and China. As the author says at the end of her book, this transnational Internet giant born in China might suggest a need to shift one’s viewpoint from “How the Internet will change China” to “How China will change the global Internet.” The internet? Or a Chinese internet? The debate is ongoing.