PR87180

BEIJING, Dec. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

A report from Science and Technology Daily | IUSTC:

In 2020, COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the world, and the digital

economy has highlighted its massive potential in the global joint response to

the pandemic.

According to the estimation of a report published by Oxford Economics, the

share of digital economy in global GDP will rise from 15% to around 25% by

2025. At present, in terms of the size of digital economy, the United States

ranks first, China second, and Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom rank from

third to fifth.

This development trend has brought "digital economy" to the spotlight on the

world stage, and related topics of digital economy have become essential topics

promoted in the bilateral and multilateral frameworks.

The "Digital Economy Sub-forum" of the 16th "Beijing-Tokyo Forum" was held on

December 1st. Twelve experts and scholars from China and Japan discussed the

possibility of cooperation between the two countries, and they also reached

consensus on relevant issues during the session.

A New Topic: How will digital economy involve in social governance?

What kind of digital society are we going to build? Zhao Jiannan, Commercial

Vice President and Chief Representative of North East Asia of Tencent Cloud

emphasized the importance of digital economy: "Digital technology is like the

'ligament' of economic and social operation, relieving 'hard impact' through

'high resilience' and saving strength for 'V-shape rebound' of industries in

the process of rapidly going through economic plights brought by the

pandemic."  

What role can digital technology play in supporting digital economy and even

social governance?

Liu Song, Vice President of Alibaba, pointed out that digital governance is

likely to become an important direction to enhance global governance capacity

from the perspective of China's scientific and technological fight against the

COVID-19 pandemic and economic recovery. Pluralistic co-governance based on

digital technology, will become an innovative form of social and city

governance. Experts at the conference largely agreed on this idea, and they

believed that Asia would become an important region to conduct trials of global

digitalization.

When answering how to manage data, especially in cross-border data

confirmation, taxation and other common problems faced by many countries, Liu

explained by sharing the wisdom of ancient water control in China. He said:

"Today's data elements are very similar to the water elements. Managing data is

also similar to controlling water, which should not be blocked or dispersed.

Due to the diversity and variability of data elements, simple hard rules cannot

be used to regulate data of liquidity."

Attended guests from both sides agreed that, the era of digital economy has

already started, the digital knowledge and information has become a key factor

of production and a new driving force for economic growth and social

development.

As for digital economy, which may bring a new round of technological

revolution, how can we project the enthusiasm of innovation and move forward

orderly under regulation at the same time?

Fang Hanting, the forum host from Chinese side and vice President of Science

and Technology Daily, illustrated that innovation and regulation are a pair of

contradictions. Without a certain innovation process, it is impossible to have

a target in mind which ones should be regulated and which ones should be eased.

Conversely,  if the series of risks brought by new changes are not taken into

account when the innovation activities enter new phases, it will also bring

many unpredictable problems. If seen from another perspective, innovation is a

form of breakthrough whereas regulation protects innovation. The two elements

restrain and reinforce each other at the same time.

Taking artificial intelligence technology as an example, Toshio Iwamoto, Chief

Corporate Advisor of NTT DATA Corporation, proposed that data developers of AI

technology need to formulate rules for the use of data, and relevant rules

should be formulated to set restriction on data users. Norihiro Suzuki,

executive director and Chief Technology Officer of Hitachi, suggested that the

use of data requires greater wisdom to comprehensively balance personal and

public interests.

A New Starting Point: Enhancing mutual trust on the Regional Comprehensive

Economic Partnership iRCEP)

Digital security was a key topic of discussion at the forum.

Tatsuya Ito, Member of the House of Representatives of Japan noted that China

has made full use of digital technology during COVID-19 .

Norihiro Suzuki pointed out that different countries have different situations

and we need to comprehensively consider factors such as institutions and

systems to discuss related issues. He expressed his hope that Japan and China

can further explore the possibility of cooperation in this regard.

Fang Hanting emphasized that China and Japan, especially the industrial sector

of both countries, should seriously consider how to deepen cooperation in the

digital industrial chain and ensure uninterrupted supply of the industrial

chain while jointly using and maintaining it as a public product.

Xu Zhiyu, President of Global Government Affairs of Huawei Technologies Co.,

Ltd., stressed that Huawei has always taken network security and user privacy

protection as the highest guideline and foundation of its business. For more

than 30 years, Huawei has served customers from more than 170 countries and

regions and never received any request from the government to provide user

information. Huawei will never risk its customers' rights or its own survival.

The guests from both sides mentioned the "Regional Comprehensive Economic

Partnership Agreement (RCEP)" that had just been signed. They agreed that in

the midst of the uncertainty of the digitization process, the signing of this

agreement provides a rare historical opportunity for international cooperation

in the field of digital technology and digital industry. The prospects of

China-Japan cooperation under bilateral and even multilateral frameworks are

promising.

On September 8th, 2020, China put forward the Global Data Security Initiative

at an international seminar on "Seizing digital opportunities for cooperation

and development". Referring to the existing information asymmetry between China

and Japan to a certain extent, Fang stressed that the media of both sides

should provide balanced coverage for their citizens so as to establish the

foundation of mutual trust as soon as possible. "We believe that we should

respect each other's digital sovereignty, build digital mutual trust under the

UN framework, and implement regional integration of digital economy under

multilateral frameworks such as RCEP."

A New Direction: Open cooperation to jointly create a digital future of the

region

Just as a sport competition is transferred to a new arena, the new

technological revolution and industrial transformation will reshape the

structure of the global economy. At the forum, participants reached consensus

that China and Japan, especially the industry sector of both countries, should

swiftly grasp the trend and seize the opportunity. All players from two sides

should not spend too much time in waiting and seeing. The call from the new

technological era needs active participation and cooperation.

Taro Shimada, Executive Officer and Corporate Senior Vice President of Toshiba

Co., Ltd., Japan and the head of its digital business, pointed out that

maintaining world peace requires openness and exchanges. The most important

thing is the exchange of scientific and technological information. He suggested

that China and Japan can open wider and wider to each other and reach consensus

through open and honest exchanges at the same time.

Regarding cross-language and cross-cultural information exchange, Jiang Tao,

senior vice president of iFlytek Co., Ltd., noted that the cooperation scope

between China and Japan in the field of artificial intelligence will be very

broad. He gave an example. In October 2018, Eiken Foundation of Japan announced

for the first time that it would introduce machine evaluation technology in the

spoken language test and iFlytek is the only partner. Starting in 2019,. the AI

automatic scoring system provided by iFlytek helps to improve the accuracy and

efficiency of scoring in the practical English skills test CBT. "At present,

iFlytek translators have been sold to more than 130 countries and regions, and

have achieved barrier-free communication among more than 60 languages. iFlytek

has become the official exclusive supplier of automatic voice conversion and

translation for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. We hope that

our artificial intelligence technology can also offer help to Tokyo Olympics

next year,."

Jia Jingdun, director of the Torch High Technology Industry Development Center

of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China,

suggested that China's high-tech industrial development zones provide a good

environment for digital technology innovation and industrial development. The

169 national high-tech industrial development zones attach great importance to

the development of digital economy. In recent years, dozens of national

high-tech zones such as Xi'an, Hefei, Hangzhou and Shenyang have formulated

corresponding plans for digital economy or digital industry development .

Jia made several suggestions on the cooperation between China and Japan. First,

differences should not restrict the cooperation between the two parties. Given

that Sino-Japanese cooperation does not violate the current laws, raising

concerns can provide an entry point for deepening cooperation; Second, China

and Japan can carry out pragmatic cooperation in the development of the digital

economy and industry, and continue to propose specific solutions to the

concerns of both parties; Third,  multi-layer exchanges and cooperation among

government, universities, research institutes and enterprises should be carried

out.

Liu Song also responded to this suggestion. He proposed, "We might as well

adopt the 'special zone' model in the high-tech industrial development zones

and the free trade zones to continuously discuss and ultimately formulate

regulations agreed by both parties."

Norihiro Suzuki noted that in the cooperation of digital development, it is

also very important to share each other's social concepts and values. Both

parties need to build  rules for data flow on the basis of shared values and

better apply them to revitalize private enterprises, thus promote the

development of a digital society in the future.

The guests from both parties also discussed the inherent logic of digital

currency and future regional economic integration. Hiromi Yamaoka, director of

Future Co., Ltd., Japan, pointed out that Japan is willing to cooperate with

China and continue to promote coordinated development of regional economy.

"While respecting the values of customers, Huawei expects to continue to create

local value all over the world, including Japan. Both China and Japan have

industrial advantages and innovative spirit. Japanese companies and Huawei have

natural complementary advantages concerning supply chain and technology. Open

cooperation between Chinese and Japanese companies can jointly create a digital

future. In addition, the development of the digital economy in China and Japan

is inseparable from a good industrial environment and innovative talents. It is

also hoped that China and Japan can create a more open policy environment,

encourage innovation, and help small and medium-sized enterprises of the two

countries to carry out more and deeper cooperation, thus jointly provide the

most competitive solutions and products to the world market," Xu Zhiyu

emphasized.

SOURCE: Science and Technology Daily | IUSTC