Connected China
http://china.fathom.info/
Connected China is an interactive website dedicated to “tracking thousands of people, institutions, and connections that form China’s elite power structure”. It diagrams networks of political, familial and social ties between government figures. For instance, the Social Power section of the application demonstrates the familial ties of Xi Jinping, and how he has attempted to balance the support of rival factions. The main interactive diagram on the page shows different clusters of “princelings”, the sons and daughters of powerful leaders, “golden sons-in-law”, the spouses of princelings, and past and current leaders, as well as the connections between clusters.
This useful multimedia interface for viewing the political makeup of China’s government relates to the first chapter of our course, Graph Theory and Social Networks. There is a particular focus on ego networks in the social network part of the site. Xi Jinping’s image is placed strategically at the ego of the network, with the connected nodes in a semicircle around his photograph. You can even hover over the connections to Xi Jinping and see their relation to him, whether they are “reportedly close to”, an ally, a relative, or even have a complex relationship with him. This is helpful in determining the strong and weak ties in his network, relating to the strength of weak ties philosophy discussed in lecture.