Miguel Afonso Caetano<p>"Economist Yanis Varoufakis has warned that the West is drifting towards so-called “technofeudalism”, a system where big tech firms extract digital rents, enclose ecosystems and centralise value. Users become serfs within closed platforms, while companies prioritise shareholders over societal value.</p><p>In contrast, I believe China is charting an alternative which I call “technomeritism”. This builds on the principles of permissioned innovation but pushes beyond regulatory control to a broader value system, where technological success is judged not by valuation, but by whether it earns its place in society. It is earned through alignment with public goals, civic legitimacy and national strategy. Success is not concentrated but distributed across communities, the economy and wider ecosystems.</p><p>This model matters more than ever as the world faces not just a trust deficit, but a coordination deficit. Technologies like AI, quantum computing and semiconductors can no longer scale in isolation. They require systems that bind together state capacity, industry leadership and a social mandate.</p><p>China’s embrace of open source in this context, is an example of technomeritism in action. By making core technologies like large language models publicly accessible, companies such as DeepSeek and Alibaba Group Holding (which owns the South China Morning Post) are lowering barriers, encouraging collaboration and reinforcing the idea that innovation earns legitimacy through shared value, not private control.</p><p>As Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei recently put it, an open-source environment will benefit the country’s long-term future."</p><p><a href="https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3314964/china-offers-alternative-western-technofeudalism" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion</span><span class="invisible">/article/3314964/china-offers-alternative-western-technofeudalism</span></a></p><p><a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/GenerativeAI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>GenerativeAI</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/China" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>China</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/OpenSource" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>OpenSource</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/BigTech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>BigTech</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/SiliconValley" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SiliconValley</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/TechnoFeudalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>TechnoFeudalism</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/OpenWeight" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>OpenWeight</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/DeepSeek" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DeepSeek</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Huawei" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Huawei</span></a></p>