Recently, a reporter from Jiandao.com published an article on a German website and learned that China’s Belt and Road Initiative includes the establishment of a digital Silk Road in addition to expanding land and sea routes. Beijing wants to use artificial intelligence to make world trade paperless and take the world economy to a new level.

The article said: China's Belt and Road Initiative has decisively shaped the global economy in 10 years: ports, railway lines and container transshipment points are obvious results. On the other hand, the Digital Silk Road, although it requires careful observation to see it clearly, is of great importance: because the digital infrastructure should cover transport routes and make nodes on existing routes more efficient.

"Journal of Global Trade" published an article stating that the Digital Silk Road is an important support for China to modernize the ancient Silk Road. In the context of the epidemic, the Digital Silk Road plays an important role in China's process of creating a new trade ecosystem and deepening trade relations with developing countries. It includes a large number of technical projects, such as building 5G base stations, laying fiber optic cables, building and equipping data centers and so on.

Practical significance

In May 2017, President Xi Jinping officially proposed the Digital Silk Road in his speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. President Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that we must adhere to innovation-driven development, strengthen cooperation in frontier fields such as digital economy, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and quantum computers, promote the construction of big data, cloud computing, and smart cities, and connect them into a 21st-century digital silk road .

The Digital Silk Road has important contemporary connotations and practical significance. On the one hand, the Digital Silk Road is an organic combination of digital infrastructure, digital technology, etc. and the Belt and Road Initiative. It is an important measure proposed by China to promote global common development in the digital economy era. On the other hand, since the development of the digital economy is an important starting point for accelerating industrial transformation and upgrading and enhancing independent innovation, the construction of the Digital Silk Road will help countries along the Belt and Road accelerate their international competitiveness and influence. In addition, as a major country in the digital economy and digital trade, China's promotion of the construction of the Digital Silk Road will continue to promote the opening of regional markets, optimize the regional industrial layout, and form a community of interests with countries along the route, and then form a community of destiny.

Remarkable achievement

At present, the scale of China's digital economy ranks second in the world, with a good industrial foundation and huge market space. However, most countries or regions along the Belt and Road are still in the early stages of digital economy development. The construction of the Digital Silk Road has created a broader new space for cooperation in the development of the digital economy of countries along the route. It has not only become an important engine for the high-quality development of the Belt and Road, but also brought tangible dividends in the development of digital technology to countries and regions along the route. After the epidemic, the Digital Silk Road will also effectively help countries along the route to accelerate economic recovery.

Over the past six years, the construction of the Digital Silk Road has made remarkable achievements. Up to now, China has signed memorandums of understanding on Digital Silk Road cooperation with 17 countries, established Silk Road e-commerce bilateral cooperation mechanisms with 23 countries, and built 34 cross-border land cables and multiple international submarine cables with neighboring countries. Digital economy cooperation with countries and regions along the Belt and Road is constantly deepening.

In recent years, the construction of the Digital Silk Road has continued to deepen and become more solid. First, through a series of digital economic cooperation, China has promoted the digital economic development of countries along the Belt and Road, making important contributions to bridging the global digital divide. Second, under the active promotion of China, more and more countries along the Belt and Road are actively participating in building a peaceful, secure, open, cooperative and orderly cyberspace. At the same time, China continues to promote the construction of digital infrastructure in the fields of Internet, telecommunications, and e-commerce in countries along the Belt and Road, and accelerates the interconnection of digital infrastructure in countries along the route. Third, Chinese products sold through e-commerce platforms basically cover countries along the Belt and Road. At the same time, more and more products from countries along the route have entered thousands of households in China through e-commerce platforms.

Future direction

In the future, in order to achieve greater development of the Digital Silk Road, we need to do a good job in the following aspects: First, further strengthen the "Action Initiative to Build a Community of Shared Future in Cyberspace", "The Belt and Road Digital Economy International Cooperation Initiative", "China-ASEAN Concerns on Building a Digital The role of a series of international cooperation initiatives such as the "Initiative on Economic Partnership" will allow more countries to participate in the construction of the Digital Silk Road and promote the construction of a community of shared future for mankind on a larger scale; the second is to strengthen the traditional foundation of countries along the Belt and Road Digital transformation of facilities, increase guidance and support for digital infrastructure construction, and consolidate the foundation for deeper interconnection of the Digital Silk Road in the future; the third is to step up the formulation of normative standards and management models related to data governance to effectively ensure data storage , transmission, use, etc., so that data can flow safely on the Digital Silk Road; Fourth, further strengthen the cultivation of digital talents, expand the scope of international training cooperation, share Chinese experience and provide corresponding technologies to countries along the Belt and Road Support and gradually improve the digital literacy of people in countries along the route.Editor/Ma Xue