Internet basic resources have been innovated and developed, and the digital economy has developed in an all-round way.
Yu Zeng, director of CNNIC, believes that during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China’s digital economy is booming, and Internet applications are blooming. The Internet has strongly supported the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic, which has provided a strong support for China to build a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles promoting each other. This Report mainly embodies the following characteristics:
In the digital economy,During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the CPC Central Committee took the overall situation into consideration and drew a blueprint, and successively issued policy documents such as the Outline of the National Informatization Development Strategy and the "Thirteenth Five-Year National Informatization Plan", which comprehensively laid out the industrial development and accurately focused on key areas, which played a key role in raising the flag and guiding the vigorous development of China’s digital economy. First, the digital transformation of the industry has been further promoted. In 2019, the overall level of digital agriculture and rural development in counties nationwide reached 36.0%, of which the digital level of agricultural production reached 23.8%. By the end of June 2020, the number of enterprises applying the standards of the management system of integration of industrialization and informatization in China had exceeded 28,000, the penetration rate of digital R&D design tools for enterprises reached 71.5%, and the numerical control rate of key processes reached 51.1%. Second, the level of digital industrialization continued to improve. In the past five years, China’s online retail sales exceeded 10 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.6%, of which the contribution rate of physical online retail sales to the total retail sales of social consumer goods reached 45.6%. By December 2020, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in China has reached 1.69 trillion yuan.
In terms of Internet applications,During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, China’s Internet applications entered a period of great prosperity and development, which greatly met the needs of the people’s production and life and continued to release the dividend of the digital economy. First, business transaction applications opened up online and offline, continuously expanded product channels and innovative marketing forms, and promoted the increase of online shopping and online payment users by 89.3% and 105.3% respectively compared with the end of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan. Second, the application of online entertainment has been innovated, and the content and technology have been significantly improved, which has greatly enriched the amateur life of the people. Among them, the number of online video users reached 927 million, an increase of 83.9% compared with the end of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, making it the second largest network application. Third, public service applications such as online education and online medical care are constantly emerging, constantly promoting the extension of high-quality public resources to poor and remote areas, and promoting the coordinated development of netizens across the country and sharing the fruits of Internet development.
In the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic,China’s relatively complete Internet infrastructure and rich Internet applications have played a key role in winning the epidemic prevention and control war. First, network applications help prevent and control the epidemic. Online news and social platforms, search engines and other Internet applications form an effective linkage, unite and inspire the people of the whole country to jointly fight the people’s war against the epidemic, help the people to get timely information about the epidemic, do personal protection and avoid further spread of the epidemic. Second, model innovation promotes the resumption of work and production. New modes such as telecommuting and online education effectively meet the practical needs of netizens in work and study, and provide powerful help for the "restart" of the whole society and economic recovery. By December 2020, the number of users of telecommuting applications had reached 346 million, an increase of 147 million compared with June 2020.
The world’s largest digital society has been initially established, and digital dividends have benefited various segments.
Zhang Xiao, deputy director of CNNIC, released the Report and interpreted it, summarizing four highlights of the development of the Internet in China in 2020 from the scale and development of netizens:
First, nearly one billion netizens constitute the largest group of netizens in the world.By December 2020, the number of netizens in China reached 989 million, accounting for one-fifth of the global netizens, and the Internet penetration rate reached 70.4%, which was higher than the global average. With the popularization and continuous improvement of the application level of the Internet, more people can enjoy the convenience brought by the Internet, and the largest netizen group in the world has gradually formed.
Second, the demographic dividend of netizens is characterized by "plate drift".On the one hand, it shows the characteristics of migration from "city to countryside", and the digital divide is further narrowed. By December 2020, the number of urban netizens in China was 680 million, accounting for 68.7% of the total netizens. The number of rural netizens is 309 million, accounting for 31.3% of the total netizens. The difference in Internet penetration rate between urban and rural areas in China is 23.9%, which has been reduced to less than 30% for the first time since 2017. On the other hand, it shows the characteristics of migration from "east to west", and the number of netizens in the central and western regions has increased rapidly. By December 2020, the number of netizens in the central and western regions increased by 40% compared with 2016, and the growth rate was 12.4 percentage points higher than that in the eastern region.
Third, the "post-00" and "silver-haired people" constitute a diverse "digital ethnic group".According to CNNIC data, the main body of Internet users’ growth is changing from young people to minors and the elderly. By December 2020, there were nearly 260 million "silver-haired netizens" (over 50 years old) and 160 million netizens under 20 years old in China. Among the new netizens, the proportion of netizens under the age of 20 is 17.1 percentage points higher than that of this group in the whole netizen; The proportion of netizens over 60 years old is 11.0 percentage points higher than that of this group in the whole netizens.
Fourth, network poverty alleviation provides strong support for building a well-off society in an all-round way.Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, government departments at all levels have conscientiously implemented the spirit of the important instructions of the Supreme Leader General Secretary on the implementation of network poverty alleviation, accelerated the process of informatization and digital transformation in poverty-stricken areas, and given full play to the role of the Internet in accurate poverty alleviation. In terms of network coverage, the proportion of poor villages connected with optical fiber reached 98%; In terms of rural e-commerce, e-commerce has entered the countryside to achieve full coverage of 832 poverty-stricken counties; In terms of network intelligence, the implementation of school networking and the promotion of online education have been accelerated, and the Internet access rate of primary and secondary schools nationwide has reached 99.7%; In terms of information services, telemedicine has achieved full coverage of county-level hospitals in state-level poverty-stricken counties.
The construction of digital government continues to accelerate, and the online service level is leading the world.
Wang Yimin, director of the E-government Research Center of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (National School of Administration) and deputy director of the National E-government Expert Committee, said that in 2020, China will earnestly implement the people-centered development concept, give full play to the effectiveness of the national integrated service system, vigorously promote the construction of digital government, and provide service support for the solid work of "six guarantees" and the full implementation of the "six guarantees" task. The urgent need to fight the COVID-19 epidemic has further accelerated the pace of digital government construction. According to the data in this Report, as of December 2020, the number of Internet government service users in China reached 843 million, an increase of 21.6% compared with March 2020, and the total number of real-name users of the national integrated government service platform reached 809 million.
In terms of digital government construction, China’s Internet government service capability has been further enhanced.Governments at all levels have gradually become a trend of "one-line operation", "remote operation" and "cross-regional operation", and "handheld operation" and "fingertip operation" have gradually become the standard of government services, and the business environment has been continuously optimized.
In the construction of an integrated government service platform, the overall service capacity of the platform "One Network" has been continuously improved.According to United Nations data, China’s e-government development index is 0.7948, ranking from the 65th place in 2018 to the 45th place, reaching a record high. In particular, the online service index, which is the core indicator to measure the development level of national e-government, has risen to 0.9059, and the index ranking has greatly increased to the 9th place in the world.
The new infrastructure has boosted China’s economy from big to strong, and the kinetic energy of the Internet industry has been continuously released.
Liu Jiuru, editor-in-chief of Electronic Industry Press and president of Huaxin Research Institute, believes that the 47th Report of CNNIC fully shows that during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China’s new infrastructure has been accelerated, laying a solid foundation for the rapid development of the Internet industry and the wider application of a new generation of information technology. In the Report, it has the following two characteristics:
First of all, the new infrastructure was fully launched, which successfully helped the development of the Internet industry and the prosperity of the digital economy.By December 2020, China had built 718,000 5G base stations, and promoted the construction and sharing of 330,000 5G base stations. There are more than 180 million connected terminals, and the world’s largest 5G network has been built; The construction of industrial internet has been steadily promoted, and more than 100 industrial internet platforms with certain industry and regional influence have been cultivated, connecting 40 million sets of industrial equipment, and the industrial scale has reached 3 trillion yuan; The construction of air and space network facilities has been accelerated. In June 2020, China successfully launched the 55th navigation satellite of Beidou system, and fully completed the deployment of Beidou-3 global satellite navigation system constellation six months ahead of schedule. Navigation services based on Beidou have been widely used in e-commerce, mobile intelligent terminal manufacturing, location services and other fields.
Secondly, high and new technologies continue to break through, releasing the kinetic energy of industrial development.With quantum technology becoming the focus of information and communication technology evolution and industrial upgrading, China has made remarkable progress in policy layout, technological development and industrial application. In the field of blockchain, 40 blockchain industrial parks have been built nationwide in 2020, and the number of blockchain-related enterprises has reached 64,996. In the first half of 2020, the blockchain industry market scale was 1.715 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 246.5%. In the field of big data, the scale of China’s big data industry exceeded one trillion yuan in 2020, reaching 1,010 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%. In the field of artificial intelligence, a new generation of artificial intelligence technology is accelerating the deep integration and application in various industries, and promoting the acceleration of economic and social fields from digitalization and networking to intelligence.
Internet basic resource technology continued to innovate, and cross-domain integration and development accelerated and deepened.
Xie Gaogang, deputy director of the Network Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that with the continuous development of Internet-related industries and applications, higher requirements have been put forward for the safe and stable operation of Internet infrastructure, the innovation and breakthrough of Internet architecture and basic resource technology. In the Report, it is embodied in the following points:
One isBreakthrough in technological innovation promotes the continuous improvement of the safety and reliability of basic resources. China has carried out in-depth research and development on network architecture, analysis of Internet basic resources and related technologies of network security protection, and has formed a proprietary and independent technical system from the basic theory of architecture, key technologies of basic resource perception analysis and security protection system, which has effectively maintained the safe and stable operation of China’s Internet infrastructure.
The second isThe technology of Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) has developed steadily. Relevant domestic institutions, including CNNIC, continue to carry out RPKI-related work, study the implementation mechanism, deploy test systems, and form a variety of research results such as the Report on the Development Status and Technical Trend of Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI).
The third isCross-domain integration and development have been accelerated and deepened. China’s Internet basic resource technology is further deeply integrated with big data, blockchain and other technologies, and has successively hatched national Internet basic resource big data (service) platform, blockchain-based Internet basic resource management service (experimental) platform and other technical platforms, which strongly support the management service needs of Internet basic resources.