China miffed at ET article that flagged its protectionist policies

Beijing's protectionist policies that led to the creation of local digital giants such as Sina Weibo are common knowledge. But China does not like to be identified as a protectionist regime.

Chinese state-run media outlet Global Times has taken exception to an ET article that pointed out that "China's digital protectionism, and a US retreat, can be analogous to India's victory in Globalisation 4.0".

"Once synonymous with knock-off goods, China now inspires Silicon Valley to mimic its on-demand bike rental services. But its digital economy is a testament to well-worn 20th-century statecraft. Protectionism has meant Chinese payment services like Tenpay and Alipay having over 800 million users and a combined market share of nearly 90%. The microblogging site Sina Weibo has 500 million Chinese users — more than Twitter's global user base. The story repeats itself in search (Baidu), local e-commerce (Alibaba, JD.com), local commutes (Didi Dache, Kaundi Dache) and travel and accommodation (Ctrip, Tujia)," said the ET article by Samir Saran, the vice-president of Observer Research Foundation.


An article in Global Times takes exception to Saran's description which is in fact a general perception of the Chinese economy all over the world.
"There is much to admire about China's rise as a technology and innovation power to become a rival of the US on many fronts. The admiration could well prompt other countries, particularly China's neighbor that is pushing for the Digital India initiative, to consider ideas on duplicating China's success. But it could be misleading if the interpretation of the "China story" is distorted, as seen in a recent article in the India-based Economic Times, which mistakenly concluded that China's digital protectionism "can be analogous to India's victory in Globalization 4.0," the article says.

It argues that the success of Chinese digital giants is actually due to opening up of the economy and reforms instead of protectionism.

China's arm-twisting of Western tech companies has become a common knowledge. Not long ago, China did little to control the global narrative about its authoritarian regime. Now that it is emerging as a world power and sees itself leading the world in many fields, it needs to create a positive image, however conflicting it is with the reality of the Chinese state. That's why it has begun taking exception to descriptions that reveal the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime.