The rapid development of online platforms has resulted in notable governance challenges worldwide. While governments and platform companies often struggle and compete with each other in Western countries, scholars generally view the interaction between the two in China as cooperative. Given that platform companies, after all, are private organizations, how should we understand the nature of their relationship with the government in China? Furthermore, how does the Chinese government make the relationship sustainable? Based upon extensive fieldwork and documentary sources, we conceptualize the relationship between the government and platform companies in China as predicated on “informal subcontracting,” which resembles “administrative subcontracting” but is distinguished from it by the informal components of its operation—characterized by a higher degree of negotiability, reciprocity, and flexibility within the rule of law. Our findings carry important implications for our understanding of government–enterprise relations and platform governance in China.
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