Towards future politics of the cybersphere: China’s temporal-spatial governance of digital transition

1. Planning connects the present to competing futures

The article interprets the 14th Five-Year Plan as more than a policy roadmap. It examines how the Plan articulates a vision of digital development that links present policy choices to longer-term ambitions for national development, technological autonomy and socialist modernity. This temporal perspective reveals how digital governance involves competing ideas about the future and the paths through which it might be realised.

2. Strategic autonomy confronts supply-chain dependencies

China’s efforts to strengthen domestic innovation and industrial capacity seek to address vulnerabilities in transnational technology supply chains. Yet the expansion of domestic production and digital industries does not eliminate external dependencies. The article uses these tensions to examine how geopolitical competition and existing supply-chain hierarchies shape the possibilities and limits of China’s digital development.

3. Infrastructure reshapes connectivity and territorial power

The article traces how domestic digital infrastructure, international network connectivity and digitally enabled urban-rural development contribute to the reorganisation of the cybersphere. These initiatives operate across territorial and transnational scales, bringing state strategy, commercial interests and social development objectives into interaction. Their outcomes remain contested, reflecting the continuing tension between global integration, strategic autonomy and competing political-economic priorities.