#51 Public Values of Chinese Digital Technologies and their Impacts on Europe

Chinese digital technologies are becoming an increasingly visible part of everyday life in Europe. From social media platforms like TikTok and ecommerce giants like Shein, to BYD vehicles and Chinese open-source AI models, technologies developed in China are reaching European consumers on an unprecedented scale. Even inspiring imitation by global competitors like Instagram and YouTube.

This reflects a broader shift in the technology landscape. Whereas digital technologies used to come nearly exclusively from the United States, Chinese digital technologies are now emerging as significant actors in European markets and society. Yet while awareness of the opportunities and challenges posed by digital technologies has grown, the contexts that shape Chinese approaches to technology remain poorly understood.

As digital technologies increasingly influence public values such as privacy, equal treatment, autonomy and human dignity, understanding the values and ideas embedded in their design and operation has become more important than ever.

This new China Knowledge Network (CKN) explores how Chinese values shape the governance, development and adaptation of digital technologies, and what their growing prominence means for Europe. Helping European audiences understand Chinese digital technologies on their own terms.

The report’s core conclusions include: 
 

• China and the EU differ fundamentally on the relationship between digital technology, the state, and individual rights, but these differences should not obscure important areas of value convergence. In China, values such as privacy, autonomy and equality remain conditional on broader state-defined objectives, while European public values are grounded in individual rights. Yet both sides increasingly share concerns about the negative societal effects of digital technologies; in some areas, China is developing regulatory approaches ahead of Europe. 
• The Chinese state exerts substantial influence over digital companies, even as private companies continue to act with a significant degree of agency and independence. Policymakers should therefore avoid one-size-fits-all assumptions that Chinese technologies are simply instruments of state control, yet also combat naivety about potential risk. 
• China’s digital governance is simultaneously among the world’s most restrictive for individual liberty and the most ambitious in regulating and harnessing digital technologies in governance. China has pioneered regulatory interventions on AI safety, data protection, the protection of minors online, and digital work. Meanwhile, authorities do not just use digital technologies for surveillance; they also enhance state capacity to proactively respond to citizens’ concerns and streamline bureaucracy. 
• Chinese AI adoption reveals the same fundamental public value tensions as in Europe: the autonomy of work, the equity of access to social infrastructure, and the integrity of emotional relationships. However, adoption in China has often moved faster than governance, and these tensions are negotiated in practice before they are addressed in policy. 4 CKN | Public Values of Chinese Digital Technologies and their Impacts on Europe. 
• Adoption of AI in China is uneven across society and technologies. Sometimes, it is driven by top-down policy, other times by societal forces and popular trends. Hence, Chinese AI developments cannot be understood as purely state-centric. 
• Public values travel with technology exports, but the values of Chinese digital technologies are not uniform. Some Chinese platforms like Xiaohongshu encourage autonomy and local community-building, while others like WeChat can harm these values. This means that regulators cannot treat all Chinese platforms as alike. 
• Chinese digital technologies have material consequences in Europe. In ecommerce, digital technologies can hollow out European retail while disregarding environmental and local sustainability. On social media, platforms like Xiaohongshu support community building while also creating the conditions for displacement and social exclusion. Digital trends like “Chinamaxxing” are not naturally harmful, but they present a skewed vision of China which can only be countered with deeper societal knowledge of China.

Altogether, the challenges raised by Chinese digital technologies for Europe require both near term and long-term responses. They are not solutions that can be achieved at the level of individual member states, but require a European solution to be meaningful in scale and influence for countering the impact of all players involved – both companies and foreign governments. We recommend that these responses avoid one-size fits-all assumptions or solutions; be designed in a country-agnostic fashion; and prioritise comprehensive approaches over blanket bans.

About the authors 

Vincent Brussee is a PhD Candidate at Leiden University, specialising in the application of natural language processing for Chinese policy analysis. Previously, he was an analyst at MERICS, Europe’s largest think tank on contemporary China. He is also author of the book Social Credit (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). 

Rogier Creemers is a University Lecturer in the Law and Governance of China at Leiden University. His work focuses on Chinese digital technology policy and regulation, as well as the Party’s ideological and organizational approach to governance. 

Adam Knight is an independent researcher on Chinese technology policy and law. He holds a PhD cum laude from Leiden University and a BA and MSc from the University of Oxford. He is also the founder of YASO, an AI-commerce company with offices in London, Hamburg and Shanghai. 

Carwyn Morris is Senior Lecturer in Digital Society and Geography in the Department of Media Studies, SOAS University of London and a Research Fellow at the SOAS China Institute. His research focuses on wanghong (网红; internet fame), the cultural industries, activism, and the impact of Chinese social media around the world.