I recently spoke with Lin Zhang, assistant professor of communication and media studies at the University of New Hampshire and author of a new book, about this. Reinventing Labor: Entrepreneurship in New China’s Digital Economy. Based on a decade of research and interviews, this book explores the rise and social impact of successful (at least temporary) Chinese entrepreneurs, especially those working in the digital economy.
Not long ago, China obsession with an entrepreneurial spirit. At the Davos Conference in the summer of 2014, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for a “Large-Scale Entrepreneurship and Innovation” campaign. “A new wave of grassroots entrepreneurship… will keep China’s economic development dynamics up to date,” he declared.
Technology platforms that have provided entry points into the digital economy for many new entrepreneurs have also joined the government campaign. Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce empire Alibaba and former English teacher said in his 2018: [the] Young people in China and around the world can do the same. Alibaba has often taken pride in being an advocate for small online businesses, even inviting one local seller to a bell-ringing ceremony in New York in 2014. It focuses on the people who use platforms like Alibaba, not the tech giants in the countries that founded them. )
At the heart of this campaign is a compelling idea bolstered by China’s most powerful voice. Everyone has a chance to become an entrepreneur thanks to the vast new opportunities in China’s digital economy. As the title of Zhang’s book suggests, one of the key elements of this promise is that in order to succeed, one must leave a steady job, learn new skills and new platforms, leverage niche networks and experiences, and more. , is that you always have to reinvent yourself. They may have been looked down upon in the past — and use them as assets to run new businesses.
Many Chinese people of different ages, genders, educational and economic backgrounds have heeded this call. In this book, Zhang focuses on three types of entrepreneurs.
- Silicon Valley-style startup founder in Beijingwho made the most of the government’s obsession with entrepreneurship.
- local e-commerce Taobao, a popular shopping platform, hires its own family members and neighbors to turn local crafts into profitable businesses.
- big nameoften female Resellers who buy luxury fashion items Buy from abroad and sell to middle-class Chinese consumers through the social media gray market.
What interests me most about their stories is how they reveal how, despite their differences, Chinese entrepreneurship falls short of the promise of egalitarianism. .
Take a local Taobao seller as an example. Inspired by a cousin who quit a factory job to become a Taobao seller, Zhang lived in a rural village in eastern China, returned to the countryside after working in the city, and became an entrepreneur selling local traditional products. I observed people reinventing. —in this case, clothing and furniture woven from straw.
Zhang has found that some e-commerce shop owners have become wealthy and famous, but share only a fraction of the profits with the workers they hire to grow their businesses. . And the country has ignored those workers when it boasts about its entrepreneurial spirit in rural China.
