The Illusion of Choice
China, Techno-Feudalism, and the Global Con Game
While Western Big Tech fattens itself on data and dollars, China offers a different beast. But behind the slogans of 'planning' and 'public interest' lies a global tech war the public never signed up for.
There’s a dangerous myth circulating: that the West’s so-called 'techno-feudalism' is being heroically countered by China’s alternative model, supposedly rooted in public planning, open-source ideals, and societal harmony. The only problem? It’s propaganda just packaged with Chinese characteristics.
Let’s be clear. The West, particularly the US, has created a dystopia where a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires harvest your data, dictate your speech, and influence your elections. They masquerade as libertarian innovators while being nothing more than digital landlords, renting back the tools of modern life at a price most can’t afford, if not in cash, then in privacy.
However, don’t be misled into thinking China’s model is the solution. It’s the other side of the same rotten coin. Yes, Beijing clamps down on its tech giants. Yes, it talks about 'public interest' and 'open source'. But beneath the slogans lies a surveillance state so advanced it makes Meta and Google look like amateurs. Control isn’t just economic, it’s total. Expression, association, and even your thoughts are regulated, monitored, and weaponised.
And let's talk about China's technological rise because it isn't just slogans and state control, it's cold, hard advancement. While America debates TikTok bans and Britain bickers over AI ethics, China has built:
The world’s largest 5G network, covering over 90% of its population.
Quantum communication satellites that the Pentagon openly admits the West can't match.
The most sophisticated facial recognition and AI-driven surveillance grid on the planet, exported to dozens of other regimes.
Leading-edge semiconductor R&D, rapidly closing the gap on US chip dominance despite export bans.
Home-grown electric vehicle and battery technologies that already outpace European manufacturing in scale.
The argument goes that China’s approach is a form of enlightened governance, where the state reins in corporate greed to serve the people. The reality? It’s a geopolitical chess move of breathtaking ambition. China isn’t building an alternative to techno-feudalism. It’s building its own empire, using tech as the tool and citizens as the raw material.
Look at the examples: China's 'Socal Credit System' doesn't just punish bad loans or fraud it regulates behaviour, blacklisting millions from buying plane tickets or accessing decent schools based on arbitrary 'trustworthiness' scores. Its military-civil fusion programme blurs the lines between tech innovation and defence, ensuring that every private tech advance from AI to robotics feeds into Beijing's strategic machine. The Digital Yuan, touted as a modern convenience, grants the state real-time control over financial transactions, a monetary panopticon unimaginable even to Western central banks.
China’s tech empire isn’t just being built at home. Through initiatives like the Digital Silk Road, Chinese surveillance systems, network infrastructure, and smart city projects are being exported globally, embedding authoritarian-friendly tools in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and even parts of Europe. It isn’t benevolent governance, it’s technological hegemony by stealth.
Meanwhile, Britain sits caught between these giants. Our politicians fumble with soundbites about AI, data protection, and tech sovereignty while quietly handing our infrastructure to foreign firms, be they American, Chinese, or Saudi-funded. But the problem runs deeper. Britain lacks any coherent industrial strategy capable of harnessing emerging technologies for national gain. While China strategically invests in semiconductors, AI, and quantum research, and the US leverages its vast capital markets to fuel innovation, Britain dithers, relying on outdated, outmoded intellectual property laws to ring-fence what little technological advantage remains. Instead of fostering genuine R&D ecosystems, successive governments have allowed British patents, start-ups, and even entire industries to be snapped up by foreign multinationals, who promptly offshore the innovation and monopolise the profits. The British public? Once again, treated like spectators in a global power game that shapes their jobs, their freedoms, and their future.
The harsh truth? Britain and much of the West aren't even running the experiment—they're the lab rats. Washington and Beijing are locked in a ruthless, high-stakes technological arms race, while Britain dithers with White Papers and virtue-signalling conferences. The US, for all its flaws, continues to produce tech giants and advanced weapons systems at a breakneck pace. China, with remarkable efficiency, combines state power and private enterprise to leapfrog its competitors. And Britain? We draft strategy documents, sell off critical infrastructure, and allow foreign monopolies to cannibalise our universities and innovation hubs.
We've fallen so far behind we're not even on the racetrack. Our so-called 'tech sector' is a patchwork of American subsidiaries, Chinese hardware dependencies, and empty slogans about "digital transformation." The only transformation happening is Britain’s steady slide into technological irrelevance, a digital colony at the mercy of superpowers playing for keeps.
The only genuine alternative is one that no government, East or West, wants you to talk about: decentralised, citizen-owned tech, stripped of state and corporate capture. But here’s the inconvenient truth: we will never get there under the current political order. The first and greatest obstacle isn't technological, it's governmental. Britain's archaic, self-preserving governing class, propped up by party donors, Whitehall mandarins, and a political cartel allergic to bold change, stands as the true roadblock to a future that works for ordinary people.
Yet there's reason for hope, brutal as the situation may seem. The tools to build a better system from open-source platforms to decentralised currencies and citizen-led innovation hubs already exist. But unlocking them requires a shift not in software, but in sovereignty. Until we dismantle the tired political machinery, the revolving door of ministers, the lobbyist's grip on policy, and the civil service culture of managed decline, we will remain trapped.
The tech revolution must be matched by a governance revolution, a system where citizens, not corporate cronies or party elites, steer the ship. Only then can the promise of decentralised, citizen-owned tech become more than a utopian footnote; it can become the foundation of a nation that finally stops playing catch-up and starts setting the pace.
Whether it’s called 'techno-feudalism' or 'planned development, ‘ the rest of us get the bill.