Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology

17:45   Registration
18:00   Opening Remarks
18:05   Fireside Chat
18:35   Q&A
18:55   Closing Remarks
19:00   Networking Drinks

ASHK Members: HKD 150
Non-Member Ticket: HKD 200

Asia Society Hong Kong Center is proud to present Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School, to discuss her latest book, Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology.

The world is grappling with the rapid development and adoption of new technologies, with China, the European Union, and the United States each taking different approaches to regulation. What approach will win out, and how will the struggle to chart a regulatory path forward affect the evolution of new technologies and the global economy? Join Asia Society Hong Kong Center for what is sure to be a fascinating discussion of the forces shaping our digital societies.

Anu Bradford is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School, a Director for Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center, and a Senior Scholar at Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. Bradford is also a nonresident scholar in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focuses on international trade law, European Union law, digital regulation, and comparative and international antitrust law.

Bradford earned her S.J.D. (2007) and LL.M. (2002) degrees from Harvard Law School and also holds a law degree from the University of Helsinki. After completing her LL.M. studies as a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Law School, Bradford practiced antitrust law and European Union law at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Brussels before returning to Harvard for her doctoral studies. She has also served as an adviser on economic policy in the Parliament of Finland and as an expert assistant to a member of the European Parliament. Bradford is the author of The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World (OUP 2020), which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs. Her next book Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology will be published by the OUP in September 2023.

About Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology:

The global battle among the three dominant digital powers—the United States, China, and the European Union—is intensifying. All three regimes are racing to regulate tech companies, with each advancing a competing vision for the digital economy while attempting to expand its sphere of influence in the digital world. In Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology (Oxford University Press, September 26, 2023), her provocative follow-up to The Brussels Effect, Anu Bradford explores a rivalry that will shape the world in the decades to come.

Across the globe, people dependent on digital technologies have become increasingly alarmed that their rapid adoption and transformation have ushered in an exceedingly concentrated economy where a few powerful companies control vast economic wealth and political power, undermine data privacy, and widen the gap between economic winners and losers.

In response, world leaders are variously embracing the idea of reining in the most powerful tech companies. Bradford examines three competing regulatory approaches—the American market-driven model, the Chinese state-driven model, and the European rights-driven regulatory model—and discusses how governments and tech companies navigate the inevitable conflicts that arise when these regulatory approaches collide in the international domain. Which digital empire will prevail in the contest for global influence remains an open question, yet their contrasting strategies are now increasingly clear.

Digital societies are at an inflection point. In the midst of these unfolding regulatory battles, governments, tech companies, and digital citizens are making important choices that will shape the future ethos of the digital society. Digital Empires lays bare the choices we face as societies and individuals, explains the forces that shape those choices, and illuminates the immense stakes involved for everyone who uses digital technologies.

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The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and participants and, unless expressly stated to the contrary, do not reflect the opinion, position or official policy of Asia Society Hong Kong, its members, or its committees. Asia Society Hong Kong does not endorse or approve, and assumes no responsibility for the content of the information presented.