The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council unveiled guidelines for digital development and a timeline for construction of a “digital China” through strengthening 5G and computing by 2035. Building a “digital China” is an important engine for promoting Chinese-style modernization in the digital age. By 2025, the digital infrastructure will have expanded in a broad range of sectors, and China will become a global leader in digital innovations; and by 2035, the level of digital development in China will be at the forefront of the world. Major technology breakthroughs are highlighted in the document, which vows to strengthen the “key capabilities” of building a “digital China.” The guidelines also call for maintaining network security through improving laws, regulations and policies. “The document is directional, as it further refines and clarifies the development of the digital economy from the aspects of infrastructure construction, digital capabilities and the development environment,” Pan Helin, Co-director of the Research Center for Digital Economics and Financial Innovation at Zhejiang University, told the Global Times. Pan added that the guidelines will bring opportunities to companies in communications, computing power and other high-tech areas, predicting that digital infrastructure will replace traditional infrastructure projects, and become the new growth engine of China's infrastructure development.
Known as a “backbone” of digital infrastructure construction, China installed 887,000 new 5G base stations last year, and the total number has reached 2.312 million, accounting for more than 60% of the world's total, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). China's levels of digitalization and digital transformation are relatively advanced in the world, in terms of applications and the scale of the digital economy, Wang Peng, Research Fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said.
China's digital economy, ranking second worldwide for many years, has become a major growth engine for the country. In 2021, the value of China's digital economy had reached CNY45.5 trillion, accounting for 39.8% of its GDP, according to the white paper “Jointly Build a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace”, released in June last year. “Prospects are promising but problems remain,” Wang cautioned. First, China may still face some bottlenecks in key technologies. Second, unbalanced development among different regions and industries, as well as urban and rural areas, constitutes another barrier, which may create a digital divide, said the expert. The guidelines call for open and win-win international cooperation in the digital field, the Global Times reports.
