Abstract
Digital economy using internet, cloud computing, big data, as well as fintech in order to drive economic activities using digital information as a key factor for production has permeated all aspects of society as a result of unexpected onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, a white paper titled “The Development and Employment of China's Digital Economy in 2021” was released by The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), analyzing the development pattern of China's digital economy since the onset of COVID-19. This chapter summarizes the development of digital economy, the employment situation in various regions and industries in China, thereby making an in-depth analysis of the digital transformation of traditional industries along with putting forward policy suggestions for promoting further development of China's digital economy. Since the onset of COVID-19, China's digital and smart economy has ushered in creating new opportunities for growth and development as well as simultaneously combatting challenges in the macro environment.
TopBackground
Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out that “the digital economy is the future direction of global development.” Today, China's digital smart economy is booming with continuous innovation and has gradually become an important driving force for high-quality development of the Chinese economy. At the same time, the digital economy is also the focus of many of the world leaders as the global digital economy development competition becomes more fierce with each passing moment.
In the fifth chapter of China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), titled “Accelerating Digital Development and Building a Digital China,” it is mentioned that the country needs to give full play to the new advantages of the digital economy in order to create a sound digital environment. China aims to develop the digital economy, promote digital industrialization, digitization of industries, deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and build digital industry clusters with international competitiveness. All these efforts are bound to strengthen the development of a digital society and a digital government, thereby making public services and social governance more digitized and intelligent. Basic systems, standards and norms, such as data resource property rights, transaction circulation, cross-border transmission and security protection, have been established to promote the development and utilization of data resources. Expanding the access of basic public information and data, and building an open platform for unified sharing of national data have truly become a priority for China. Ensuring the security of national data and strengthen the protection of personal information as well as developing a robust regime for intellectual property (IP) rights in digital space are few of the areas where China is investing and diligently working towards Alongside, a movement for improvement in the digital skills of the entire population in order to increase access as well as fully utilize information services is finding great momentum so as to enable active participation in the formulation of international rules and standards in the digital field.
In the global innovation race, the digital sector has probably been China’s strength. The rise of influential Chinese digital giants, including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi (known together by the acronym BATX), has proved to the world that China is indeed a global leader in digital innovation (OECD, 2017a). Beyond its domestic market, international statistics clearly point towards China’s leading role in exporting digital goods and services. Given that China is densely populated with a fast-growing economy, it is not surprising that China has started to influence the global digital market (Herrero and Xu, 2018).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Transformation: Digital transformation is the development of digital technologies and supporting capabilities to create a dynamic digital business model. Digital transformation can be described as an organizational shift to big data, analytics, the cloud, mobile communication technologies, and social media platforms to provide goods and services.
Intellectual Property: Intellectual property rights refer to the exclusive rights that people enjoy according to law with respect to their intellectual achievements, usually the exclusive right granted by the state to creators for a certain period of time. Intellectual property is essentially an intangible property right. Its object is intellectual achievements or intellectual products.
Digital Technology: Digital technology refers to the use of advanced information and communication technology to collect, store, analyze and share physical information and market information in each link of the product value chain, providing important technical support for innovation in various fields.
Digital Innovation: Digital innovation refers to the innovative combination of various physical transactions and digital components to realize new products or technologies.
Digital Economy: There is currently no authoritative definition of the “digital economy”. Based on existing research, the digital economy refers to an economic system that widely uses Information and Communications Technology (ICT), including infrastructure (high-speed internet access, computing power and security services), e-commerce (the business model making significant use of ICT at the front end and back end) and application of B2B, B2C and C2C transaction modes of ICT.
State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs): The main function of a Chinese state-owned enterprise is to maximize social welfare, and profit is not its focus. State owned enterprises are an important part of China's economy. Although state-owned enterprises are generally considered inefficient, China's economy, which depends significantly upon state-owned enterprises, has made great achievements in the past four decades.
Digital Platforms: Digital platforms are a way to develop information technology infrastructure, including social media, mobile computing, and e-commerce platforms. They help companies break down barriers to creating smoother processes through digital technology. Digital platforms have a wide range of applications, including payments, accommodation, and healthcare, many of which have related applications.