온라인 플랫폼 기업에 대한 중국 반독점법 역설: ‘데이터 자본주의’에 대한 대응인가, 저항인가?

In the global digital economy, the issue of monopolies held by platform companies extends beyond economic concerns, evolving into a political issue that exacerbates inequality. The recent enforcement of stricter regulations on online platform companies by the Biden administration aims to promote market competition and ensure efficiency. With a similar concern, China has introduced an anti-monopoly bill targeting the monopoly of massive platform companies. This paper explores whether the enactment of China's anti-monopoly law and the reinforcement of regulatory supervision can be understood within the same framework as in the United States. By defining digital competition and platforms in the U.S. and China, and conducting a comparative analysis of the most recent U.S. proposed anti-monopoly bill against platform companies and the Chinese anti-monopoly bill, this paper argues that China's anti-monopoly law for online platform companies follows a different evolutionary logic than that of the West. While the U.S. grapples with the competing values of market share for fair competition and consumer welfare, the Chinese anti-monopoly law prioritizes the party's controllable market share and the issue of economic security in countering the U.S. This is why China's anti-monopoly law against platform companies is perceived as a 'response' to 'data' capitalism and, simultaneously, a 'resistance' against data 'capitalism'. The challenge lies in the structural contradictions inherent in this legislation. China needs to ease regulations on massive platform companies, like Tencent, to foster digital competitiveness capable of challenging the U.S. However, this regulatory relaxation presents a simultaneous threat of weakening the party's control.