Topic: Digital Freight Platforms as Tax Compliance Tools: Institutional Change in China's Logistics Networks

Guest: Dr. Qingren Chen, ERC Postdoctoral Research Associate, Queen Mary University of London

Date: March 18^th, 2026 (Wednesday)

Time: 14:00-15:00

Venue: T2-306

Language: English

Lecture mode: On-site participation

Abstract

As one of the key actors within the logistics industry, digital freight platforms play an increasingly significant role in the broader freight transport system. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to their developmental trajectory. Over the past two decades, these platforms have undergone a profound transformation: from early informal “small blackboard” models, to widely adopted coordination intermediaries, and eventually to becoming, for some participants, primarily “tax invoicing tools”.

Based on an institutional perspective, this seminar examines how digital freight platforms in China evolved from informal matching mechanisms in the early 2000s into formally regulated “network freight” operators, and how this process simultaneously generated a range of quasi-formal and informal practices, including invoice substitution and tax compliance services.

Drawing on approximately 70 interviews with logistics participants and one month of ethnographic fieldwork, the study reconstructs around 20 years development path of digital freight platforms from the perspectives of multiple industry actors. The findings demonstrate that this transformation has been jointly shaped by top-down macro-policy interventions, bottom-up strategic responses by industry participants, and the dynamic interactions between them.

By highlighting these multi-level dynamics, the study calls for diversified analytical perspectives in regional economic and industrial development research. Only by integrating the viewpoints of different actors can it better understand how digital infrastructure is appropriated, reshaped, and embedded within existing institutional environments.

About the Speaker

Qingren Chen is an ERC (European Research Council) Postdoctoral Research Associate at Queen Mary University of London. His current research focuses on the photovoltaic industry, mapping the global production networks of the solar sector and examining the relationship between geopolitics and energy production within the broader context of green transition. Prior to this, he completed his PhD in Human Geography at Durham University, where his work centred on relational economic geography and institutional dynamics in China. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Beijing Normal–Hong Kong Baptist University (BNBU) and his master’s degree from Loughborough University. His research interests include Global Production Networks, institutional analysis, geopolitics, cultural political economy, accumulation regimes, the logistics industry, the photovoltaic sector, and China-related development issues.