The technology industry enjoys a rosier reputation among youth in China, but they are more supportive of government regulation on the tech sector, a private survey showed. Chinese youth have more trust in the tech sector, with nine out of 10 believing tech is a source for good, compared with 44 per cent in the US, 50 per cent in the UK, and 45 per cent in Germany, according to the poll by public affairs consultancy Finsbury Glover Hering. The poll covered a total of 2,400 young people in the millennial and Gen Z age groups – those born from 1981-1996 and after the mid-90s respectively, across the US, China – UK and Germany. China’s hi-tech advances remain vital fixtures of Beijing Winter Paralympics However, Chinese respondents were the most worried about their personal data being misappropriated by tech companies, with 83 per cent concerned about their data privacy, compared with 64 per cent in the US, 56 per cent in the UK, and 53 per cent in Germany. Surprisingly, 32 per cent of respondents in China think they benefit from data collection, whereas less than one-in-five young people in Western markets feel they benefit a great deal from the prevalent practice among tech companies. “Our research shows that China’s young generation is particularly concerned that companies are tracking their activity and mining their data,” Ginny Wilmerding, a partner covering Asia at Finsbury Glover Hering, said in the report. The report also found that more young Chinese believe that artificial intelligence can solve societal problems and that more regulations are needed for taming tech companies. As a leading nation employing AI technology, 84 per cent of the Chinese respondents said they thought AI could transform society for the better. Only 44 per cent of youth in the US and UK had the same view, while the figure among those polled in Germany was 49 per cent. Chinese respondents also showed more support for government regulation of big tech companies, compared with their foreign counterparts. More than 72 per cent of young Chinese think the tech industry should be subject to more regulation, and 49 per cent wanted the government to take steps to reduce the size of tech companies. Both figures were higher than those from the Western countries. Wilmerding said nationalist propaganda could explain in part why tighter regulation on tech companies won more favour among Chinese youth, “but its citizens clearly worry that tech companies have become too powerful”. China’s harsh crackdown on tech companies over the past year has reverberated across the sector, wiping out billions of dollars in market valuations and forcing many tech giants to make deeper than usual job cuts. Observers are looking for clues as to how Chinese tech regulators will behave this coming year as the country’s biggest annual political gathering, known as the two sessions, got underway this week.