Gao Bo, Professor of the Department of Sociology of Duke University, and Senior Visiting Professor of the Institute of New Structural Economics of Peking University

We are now at the most profound historical turning point in more than 100 years. When it comes to the possibility of future cooperation between China and Japan, people usually focus on the major crisis that the US led liberal international order is facing with the trend of anti globalization. However, another possibility of Sino Japanese cooperation comes from the scientific and technological revolution: the rise of the new economy represented by the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence is posing an unprecedented challenge to the organizational form of the modern economy since the emergence of the Ford mode of production in the early 20th century. The heated international discussions on the rapid development of AI and its profound impact on future economic systems in the past two years show that this is the first time in history that the development of science and technology may fundamentally shake production and distribution in the modern economic system. At the same time, the emergence of the new economy has provided new possibilities for China Japan cooperation.

The most essential feature of digital economy is that data has become an important factor of production. In the digital economy, platforms are becoming new production units, and economies of scale are becoming important competitive advantages. The new economy represented by the Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence is constantly breaking the restrictions on the form of organizational economic activities imposed by time-space conditions for a long time. It is an important rule of the new economy to pursue coordination effect in the era of interconnection of everything.

China has been closely following this world trend since the advent of the Internet in the 1990s. In the first ten years, the business model of China's Internet industry has followed that of the United States. However, in the past 10 years, the business model of China's digital economy, represented by e-commerce, mobile payment and bike sharing, has started to lead the world trend. There are several reasons behind this: 1. China's huge population provides the most important data source for the digital economy; 2. China has a special social structure. On the one hand, Chinese people do not pay as much attention to the right to privacy as people in developed countries; on the other hand, rapid urbanization and the pressure of living in various big cities make people increasingly pay attention to the convenience of life. This makes the obstacles to data collection much smaller. At the same time, as in the case of mobile payment, China does not have the burden of over developed traditional financial industries represented by credit cards in developed countries, so it can develop by leaps and bounds. 3. Unlike American digital economy platform enterprises, which generally attach importance to professional division of labor, Chinese digital economy platform enterprises pay more attention to providing comprehensive services and horizontal integration, which makes them further occupy the advantage of traffic. 4. Mass innovation and entrepreneurship encouraged by the Chinese government have changed the thinking inertia of a generation. Young people have stopped believing in the stability provided by traditional industries and started to combine life with adventure. 5. In China, once the digital economy becomes the mainstream discourse of the future development direction, the resource mobilization ability of its system will fully reflect the policy of the local government to actively develop the digital economy.

China's new economy has been inseparable from international cooperation since the first day of its emergence. China's information industry has a very close relationship with the Silicon Valley of the United States. Chinese returnees from the United States occupy an important position among the generation of Chinese Internet elites. Unlike in the past, Silicon Valley has provided elites and business models to China's information industry in a one-way way. Recently, large enterprises of the digital economy in the United States are closely following the development of Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu. Silicon Valley enterprises, represented by Google's big data laboratory, have also set up sites in Shenzhen to seek to take advantage of China's advantages in data.

Germany's Industry 4.0 gave birth to Made in China 2025. German enterprises have been seeking cooperation in Shenyang, China. When Chancellor Merkel visited China a few days ago, she paid a special visit to Shenzhen to seek the possibility of cooperation between Chinese and German enterprises in the new economy.

The Shanghai Municipal Government summarized the unlimited possibilities provided by the digital economy into four new types, namely, "new technology", "new industry", "new model" and "new business type". This analytical framework can help us understand the advantages of China and Japan in the new economy and the basis for complementing each other. Japan's electronics industry has a great advantage in hardware through long-term accumulation. Today, 40% of the components of China's mobile phones that are expanding their market share in the world come from Japan. The enterprises of China's digital economy are leading the way in the development of new models and formats. The Internet of Things alone can see the great potential of China Japan cooperation. The huge demand of the Internet of Things for chips is considered to be the next home run of the chip industry.

Take Alibaba as an example. If you follow closely the news reports about Alibaba, you will find that Jack Ma is a Chinese entrepreneur star that leaders of all countries are eager to meet. Why? It has changed from a simple e-commerce to a high-tech company that constantly creates new business models, new business formats and new technologies and industries. Last year, it created Hema fresh food, which led the wave of "new retail" in China. This month, it announced that it would completely solve the service of three meals a day, and deliver the processed products and semi-finished products to users' homes within 30 minutes. An important reason why world leaders value Ma Yun is that Alibaba plays an important role in promoting the electronic world trade platform. This platform has been launched in Malaysia and Kazakhstan. Alibaba has also deployed new international logistics in several major cities in the world. It expects that any e-commerce can be delivered within one day domestically and three days internationally. The cross-border e-commerce led by Alibaba is closely integrated with the the Belt and Road. At present, China Europe trains have been opened between more than 30 cities in China and more than 30 cities in Europe. E-commerce and China Europe Express are becoming important infrastructure for economic cooperation in Eurasia. Leaders of all countries expect Alibaba's business will help them increase their exports to China and thus expand their employment. Japan's Express Company has officially started to use the China Europe Express. In the near future, China's e-commerce and China Europe trains can become important infrastructure for Japan to expand exports.

I don't know much about Japan's talk about the new economy, but the new economy is generally considered to be the most important new trend in the 21st century in China, the United States, and Europe. The future prosperity and prosperity of all countries are closely related to it. It has been many years to talk about China Japan cooperation purely from the perspective of international relations, and the results have not been remarkable so far. Now, the new economy provides a concrete starting point for China Japan cooperation. If the cooperation in this field is successful, it will also lay a solid economic foundation for the comprehensive relationship between the two countries in the 21st century.