Contrasting digital coproductive roles of ‘Alipay’ and ‘Xianghubao’: analysing state’s dual governance approach towards digital platforms in China

Bridging the hitherto rarely connected scholarship on digital governance studies and that on insurtech, this paper examines how different forms of digital coproduction provided by insurtech platforms and platform-based digital infrastructure shape public service delivery and the state-steered mutuality. It asks why Xianghubao (insurtech) was banned while Alipay continues to support public service delivery. Developing the conceptual framework which integrates digital coproduction and hard/soft policy instruments, this study delves into the dual governance approach towards the state-substituting and state-augmenting forms of digital coproduction. Xianghubao exemplifies a state-substituting form, where insurtech-based risk pooling operated as quasi-insurance outside regulatory oversight, thereby triggering hard regulatory instruments. In contrast, Alipay represents a state-augmenting form of coproduction which enhances public service accessibility and reduces frontline administrative burdens, thereby strengthening state capacity. The paper contributes by theorizing how techno-political configurations of digital platforms shape divergent effects on state capacity and by showing how states selectively deploy policy instruments to manage platform-based coproduction. It offers new insights into public governance in the platform era.