Untitled Page

Author	Ms Ying Wu
Organisation/Institution	Shanghai Jiao Tong University, KoGuan Law School
Country	CHINA
Panel	Law and Economic Development
Title	The Power Dynamics in Chinese Global Digital Engagement: Rethinking Law and Development as a Terrain for Political and Economic Struggle
Abstract	The project aims to investigate the power dynamics1 of Chinese global digital engagement through the “push/pull” framework. This framework will be evaluated in the context of developmental state literature and law and development scholarship. The proposed framework suggests using a push/pull image of China as a de facto “fragmented state” to comprehend its state- market relations and the implications for China’s global digital engagement. Additionally, given the fiercely contested nature of global digital governance regime, the framework also calls for an identification of the differentiated actors and a re-imagination of the political economy of the host states involved in China's global development. The research plans to conduct comparative empirical studies of the digital infrastructure sector(defined below) in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan, to examine the different forces (re)shaping China’s global digital engagement and shed light on the host countries’ involvement, critiques and resistance.(Power is relational, so when I use push-and-pull power dynamics, I endeavor to call attention to resistance, bargaining, accommodation, appropriation, and adaptions by differentiated actors. I desire that emphasizing power could allow this project to avoid singling out, essentializing, and demonizing China, but simultaneously offer a critique of legal imperialism in globalization.)
Biography	Ying Wu is a China-US Scholar at Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard Law School. Simultaneously, she is a Ph.D. candidate in Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) Law School and Senior Research Associate at SJTU China Institute for Social- legal Studies. Beyond the SJTU, she is an associate in research with China, Law and Development project in the University of Oxford, serving as the leader of the Labor and Migration Research Cluster. Ying holds an LL.B., a B.A. in Economics, and a J.M. from SJTU. She earned an LL.M. degree at the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she has also been a research consultant working on social, economic, cultural, political, and sustainability policies and practices for the Global Women Leadership Project. Ying was a visiting scholar at National Taiwan University Law School and Department of Political Science, focusing on an intersectional study of international law and international relations. Ying’s current research has addressed the issues of law and global governance, business ethics and human rights. Her work intersects feminist and gender scholarship and critical legal theory. Her Ph.D. dissertation entitled “The New Geography of Global Governance? From the Perspective of Chinese Law and Development” is an interdisciplinary research project that examines the nature of order that underlies China's new globalism with a particular emphasis on feminist and critical legal approach. Along with her academic engagement, Ying has done translation work include US Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s book My Own Words (Yilin Press) and The Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism (Joint Publishing). Her journal and conferences papers have appeared in the Critical Asian Studies, the Asian Journal of Comparative Law, etc., and have been presented in many conferences and workshops. Ying is a member of the Chinese Bar Association. Previously, she served as a law clerk in the Supreme People’s Court of China. Part of her work involved providing ammunition to the legislation of China’s Anti- domestic Violence Law. She worked as local expert for the “Women, Business and the Law” project in the World Bank. Ying also worked as a tribunal secretary at Shanghai International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission and Shanghai International Arbitration Center (SHIAC). In that capacity, she supported the research department of SHIAC as well, investigating the international commercial and state-investor arbitration. Prior to that, Ying received training from financial institutions, multinationals to the local Congress in China and Japan. Ying was the Young Ambassador of the International Leadership Foundation and the fellow at the US-Asia Institute Rule of Law Program. As a social-legal scholar and comparatist lawyer, Ying has been part of a group that provided recommendations to UN Women and OHCHR on the impact of gender equality and inclusion accelerating the SDGs. She is a founder or advisor of several non-profit social ventures and charity projects on education and gender justice.