The Chinese Digital Economy

This book points out that “Internet” is the means, and the digital economy is the result. Therefore, the development of digital economy will inevitably have a profound impact on traditional enterprises and Internet enterprises and become the main way and new driving force for China's innovation and growth. The book starts with the concept of digital economy and reveals the current development of digital economy, how to improve the foundation of digital construction, and the strategies for accelerating digital transformation of various industries, the problems that need to be solved in the development of digital economy and the huge role it will play in promoting society. The book provides a clear blueprint for the government and enterprises to understand and formulate policies and development strategies in the era of digital economy.

China’s digital economy has expanded rapidly in recent years. While average digitalization of the economy remains lower than in advanced economies, digitalization is already high in certain regions and sectors, in particular e-commerce and fintech, and costal regions. Such transformation has boosted productivity growth, with varying impact on employment across sectors. Going forward, digitalization will continue to reshape the Chinese economy by improving efficiency, softening though not reversing, the downward trend of potential growth as the economy matures. The government should play a vital role in maximizing the benefits of digitalization while minimizing related risks, such as potential labor disruption, privacy infringement, emerging oligopolies, and financial risks.

In recent years, China 's leaders have taken decisive action to transform information, communications, and technology (ICT) into the nation's next pillar industry. In Networking China , Yu Hong offers an overdue examination of that burgeoning sector's political economy. Hong focuses on how the state, in conjunction with market forces and class interests, is constructing and realigning its digitalized sector. State planners intend to build a more competitive ICT sector by modernizing the network infrastructure, corporatizing media-and-entertainment institutions, and by using ICT as a crosscutting catalyst for innovation, industrial modernization, and export upgrades. The goal: to end China's industrial and technological dependence upon foreign corporations while transforming itself into a global ICT leader. The project, though bright with possibilities, unleashes implications rife with contradiction and surprise. Hong analyzes the central role of information, communications, and culture in Chinese-style capitalism. She also argues that the state and elites have failed to challenge entrenched interests or redistribute power and resources, as promised. Instead, they prioritize information, communications, and culture as technological fixes to make pragmatic tradeoffs between economic growth and social justice.

China's Digital Presence in the Asia-Pacific explores China's digital presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing on political economy of the media, industry analysis, platform studies and cultural policy studies, the book shows that China's commercial digital platforms are increasingly recognized outside China and can disseminate Chinese culture more effectively than government supported media. It illustrates how these platforms are contributing to Chinese cultural influence, their perceived reputation and obstacles in the region while pursuing a combined approach of culture+, industry+, internet+, and platform+. In considering the multi-layered rise of the China argument, the book considers its growing technological status as an innovative nation through four policy approaches: culture+, industry+, Internet+ and platform+. Other + characterizations include intelligent+ and social+. These + characterizations show how China is rejuvenating, drawing technological knowhow from the region and adding to its cultural (and soft) power. The book focuses on six locations: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. The authors analyse Beijing's changing policies towards the governance of culture, Internet technologies and digital platforms, as well as examining consumer perceptions of China and Chinese products in the Asia-Pacific region. In using the + characterizations, the authors provide a comprehensive analysis of how Chinese cultural and creative industries became digital, as well as investigating the key players and the leading platforms including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, TikTok, Baidu, iQiyi and Meituan.

This book presents a rich selection of 36 real-world cases on how organizations in China explore the new growth pattern, business model innovation, and digital transformation in digital era. The topic of cases varies from digital marketing and Internet brands, the growth of digital platforms, digital transformation and the industrial Internet of things, strategies for cross-border e-commerce companies, and business model innovation in digital era, etc. These cases stem from a diverse set of industry sectors, reporting on best practices and lessons learned. The book shows how organizations strive to find new ways to develop and create new paths to grow in a digital world and shares essential practical insights into digital economy. All cases are presented in a standardized structure in order to provide valuable insights and essential guidance for practitioners, scholars as well as general readers.

What new directions in China’s digital economy mean for us all China is the largest homogenous digital market on Earth: unified by language, culture, and mobile payments. Not only a consumer market of unrivaled size, it’s also a vast and hyperactive innovation ecosystem for new technologies. And as China’s digital economy moves from a consumer-focused phase to an enterprise-oriented one, Chinese companies are rushing to capitalize on ways the newer wave of tech—the Internet of Things, AI, blockchain, cloud computing, and data analytics (iABCD)—can unlock value for their businesses from non-traditional angles. In China’s Data Economy, Winston Ma—investment professional, capital markets attorney, adjunct professor of digital economy, and bestselling author—details the profound global implications of this new direction, including how Chinese apps for services such as food delivery expand so quickly they surpass their U.S. models within a couple of years, and how the sheer scale and pace of Chinese innovation might lead to an AI arms race in which China and the U.S. vie aggressively for leadership. How China’s younger netizens participate in their evolving digital economy as consumers, creators, and entrepreneurs Why Online/Office (OMO, Online-merge-with-Offline) integration is viewed as the natural next step on from the O2O (Online-to-Offline) model used in the rest of the world The ways in which traditional Chinese industries such as retail, banking, and insurance are innovating to stay in the game What emerging markets can learn from China as they leapfrog past the personal computer age altogether, diving straight into the mobile-first economy Anyone interested in what’s next for Chinese digital powerhouses—investors, governments, entrepreneurs, international business players—will find this an essential guide to what lies ahead as China’s flexes new digital muscles to create new forms of value and challenge established tech giants across the world.

Supported by time series data, this publication presents an overview of trends and highlights how the Internet sector has proven to be resilient during the recent economic crisis.

The convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in blockchain creates one of the world’s most reliable technology-enabled decision-making systems that is virtually tamper-proof and provides solid insights and decisions. The integration of AI and Blockchain affects many aspects from food supply chain logistics and healthcare record sharing to media royalties and financial security. It is imperative that regulatory standards are emphasized in order to support positive outcomes from the integration of AI in blockchain technology. Regulatory Aspects of Artificial Intelligence on Blockchain provides relevant legal and security frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in blockchain and AI. Through the latest research and standards, the book identifies and offers solutions for overcoming legal consequences that pertain to the application of AI into the blockchain system, especially concerning the usage of smart contracts. The chapters, while investigating the legal and security issues associated with these applications, also include topics such as smart contacts, network vulnerability, cryptocurrency, machine learning, and more. This book is essential for technologists, security analysts, legal specialists, privacy and data security practitioners, IT consultants, standardization professionals, researchers, academicians, and students interested in blockchain and AI from a legal and security viewpoint.