ICAS Expert Voices Initiative Interview with William Vogt - September 2023

In early September 2023, Mr. William Vogt, Author and Adjunct Lecturer at Georgetown University, sat down with ICAS Trade 'n Technology (TnT) Program manager Yilun Zhang at the ICAS office in Washington, D.C. to discuss the current state and future potential of the “Chinese Internet."

This insightful interview was conducted as part of the revamped Expert Voices Initiative (EVI) at the Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS); an independent, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on the evolving dynamics in the U.S.-China relationship to promote greater collaboration and mutual understanding.

To many Western observers, China's Internet appears to be a mysterious 'black box' of unknowns and mixed signals. On one hand, the Internet is becoming a symbol of China's economic growth and opening up with the country's rapidly growing community of netizens and e-commerce businesses. Widely-used social media platforms like WeChat and Douyin (TikTok) make China one of the leading countries in this new era of information technology. On the other hand, the Internet remains rather closed off due to the Chinese government's tightening control and censorship over online content and its recent crackdowns on Internet and technology companies. How should observers properly assess China's Internet society? Is the Chinese Internet a land of free speech or is it more-so a tool for centralized control? This EVI aims to discuss and assess the current state of China's Internet and provide another depiction of this often unknown territory. Additionally, this event also seeks to explore the roles of various actors in this complex dynamic environment of the Chinese Internet.

The Expert Voices Initiative is a series of on-camera, sit-down interviews with leading experts on important issues in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. The series seeks to elicit candid opinions from experts across a range of topics, extending from economics, trade, and soft power initiatives to security, politics and foreign policy. Our goal is to provide for a global audience in-depth expert views from various national perspectives on a topical issue of significance in U.S.-China relations.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.