ABSTRACT
After more than 30 years of surging growth, China’s economy is slowing down. While the country became an economic superpower through its capacity to manufacture and export cheap goods to many parts of the world, it is now in desperate need to find a new engine. The role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in facilitating innovation and stimulate economic development has figured prominently in state policies since the 2000s (Zhao, 2008; Hong, 2017). Most recently, the state has charted the path towards digital future through the ‘Internet Plus’ (hulianwang jia) blueprint, proposed by Chinese premier Li Keqiang in his Government Work Report in 2015. As a prescription for the ailing economy and China’s aspiration for leadership in the world’s digital economy, the plan manifests the state’s intention of capturing the full potential of the internet, or of ICT more broadly including the mobile internet, cloud computing, big data and the internet of things, as a force to promote productivity and innovation.
