Mosaic of state power: How ‘New’ state capitalism shapes global tech capital

Abstract

This article investigates how China's platform and data infrastructure expand globally amid shifting state-capital relations at home and abroad. Moving beyond the dichotomy of ‘democratic free market capitalism’ and ‘authoritarian state capitalism’, it situates China within a broader shift towards ‘new state capitalism’, where states act increasingly as promoters, regulators and owners of capital. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork in Shenzhen and Jakarta (2022–2023) and a statistical analysis of Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance investments (2013–2023), the article argues that internationalisation by Chinese tech capital is best understood as reactive adaptation rather than proactive geopolitical design: domestically, antitrust actions, data securitisation and industrial upgrading pushed private firms outwards; externally, U.S. neo-mercantilist policy and economic nationalism in the Global South – such as in India and Indonesia – reveal strategies of exclusion, redirection and selective absorption that reroute foreign tech capital alongside national agendas. In an era of declining multi-stakeholder governance, the article theorises contemporary global cyberspace as a ‘mosaic of state power’, where sovereigns pursue their developmental agendas and reshape capital flows in line with their national interests. It also advances a relational, ecological account of ‘new state capitalism’ that explains how confrontation and emulation among states drive a new digital order.