China at center of regional growth with digital Silk Road

Some 300 participants including government officials, journalists from mainstream media and major commercial websites, Internet enterprises and specialists gathered in Zhanjiang, a city near the South China Sea and a starting point of the ancient Maritime Silk Road 2,000 years ago, for the 15th Forum on Internet Media of China.

Themed the Belt and Road Initiative and Cyber Power Strategy, proposed by President Xi Jinping, the forum closed with the Zhanjiang Declaration, calling for joint efforts by nationwide Internet media to build a "digital Silk Road, bridging the cultural and historical gaps among countries and regions along the famed Silk Road.

It was the second time in a month that China's Internet sector appealed to the world to construct a "digital Silk Road". Earlier in July, Lu Wei, director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, proposed collaboration on a digital Silk Road during the first China-EU Digital Cooperation Roundtable.

According to Joseph S Nye's soft power theory, China has created a civilization of wealth and science that topped the world for 1,500 years, a miracle in world history.

It is regretted that after Zheng He, an ancient Chinese official who began maritime cruises to Southeastern Asia and Eastern Africa, and marked a milestone in the great geographical discoveries in the past 500 years, China, once a great agricultural civilization, closed its own borders and lagged behind the industrialized western world. The nation suffered a lot after the Opium War, but never caved in. It survived and rejuvenated. China learned the hard way in its own modernization drive.

China has revitalized its image throughout a series of social overhauls and reforms and has brought about a transformation from an agricultural civilization to an industrial and information civilization. It should now be an essential turning point for the world's largest population and second-largest economy to develop confidently.

In 2009, the Time magazine named Chinese workers "Person of the Year", giving credit to the country's workers who not only salvaged China but also the world amid the global financial crisis. In 2014, Mary Meeker, crowned as American Internet queen, proposed to "learn from China" in her annual Internet report. In 2013, China's population of mobile users surpassed the United States and spent considerably more time on Internet and mobile terminals than its American counterparts. In a graph showing the proportion of each economy's share in global GDP, China used to dominate with 33 percent in 1820 but plunged to only 2 percent in the 1970s. Meanwhile, Europe took up 27 percent of global GDP in 1820, climbing to its climax of 40 percent in 1900, but fell back to 16 percent in 2010. As with the US, it only covered 2 percent in 1820 and climbed to a transient peak of 35 percent after World War II. The country's share remained 25 percent for the following six decades and finally jumped to 19 percent in 2010.

China is the biggest developing country and its civilization has sustained for more than 5,000 years, which renders China the only modernized emerging country with such a long continuous history. It has taken China just over 30 years to free 600 million people from impoverishment. The Belt and Road Initiative bonds China to the rest of the world, leading to a future of shared prosperity and it is imperative to stick to the four comprehensives including constructing a prosperous society, abiding by the rule of law, deepening the reformation and strengthening Party discipline. Thus, there will be a stable political environment fostering more investment and innovation to amplify the voice of China in the international community.

However, we have to be well aware that China only spent 30 years in achieving what the West took 300 years to accomplish, which results in a lag in the cultural sense compared to the economic skyrocketing. Although China is the second largest economy, the per capita GDP still ranks around 90th. There is a big gap between China and developed countries in terms of cultural industry and soft power. Due to the country's underdevelopment of the Internet, digital cultural soft power will be the major area to improve.

The annual income per capita of China only takes one sixth of America's and one fifth of Canada and Germany. But the rise of the Chinese middle class and enormous scale of its economy create a very big space in which China can grow. In China, about 110 million people have received higher education, a population that ranks first in the world and far exceeds the US' 76 million. Chinese Internet users have reached 649 million, the biggest driver of the country's economic growth. To ride the wave, China comes up with "The Internet Plus Initiative" and "Made in China 2025 Strategy" and promotes the establishment of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the BRICS development Bank and The Silk Road Fund, laying a solid foundation for the information connectivity of "One Belt, One Road".

The revival of the Chinese nationality requires China to embrace the world along with its great opportunities and impetus. As information technology and communication skills advance, the exchange between different civilizations has become more frequent over time.

As Christian Desglise, dean of BRICS Institute of Columbia University, wrote in Financial Times on July 15, it is China that enabled the BRICS Economic Summit to run smoothly and fuel the reformation of emerging markets. While mapping out the trade route connecting Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, China is placing itelf at the center of a regional growth that contributes 85 percent to the global economy.

Chinese Internet media lays the focus on building a "digital Silk Road" that boosts people-to-people communication, and rejuvenates the ancient Silk Road with the Internet to form an entity of interest, fate and responsibility that builds on mutual political trust, more merged economies and cultural inclusiveness. The "digital Silk Road" is charismatic because it could become a brand new axis of global order by offering a platform of equal cooperation, cultural exchange and business opportunities in the world arena.

The author is deputy editor-in-chief of Cnr.cn and a guest commentator of China Daily.