By Julius Černiauskas, CEO at Oxylabs [1]
However, the very nature of the global digital economy makes it unlikely that one region's dominance will go unchallenged. Over the years, China has built itself up as a challenger to be reckoned with. Its e-commerce has been successful both in the West and in the huge domestic market, while Westerners struggle to compete in the latter. However, China's influence in cyberspace goes beyond e-commerce. The broader goal of the Chinese government is China's global digital dominance, which has already raised concerns in the West. By taking a closer look at e-commerce, we can also understand these broader concerns better. $1.255 trillion [2] in revenue globally, the most for any region, followed by $1.066 trillion made by businesses from the United States (USA).
Having the world's largest domestic e-commerce market helps to achieve this lead. The rising middle class and the government's support are among the factors [3] that help to increasingly digitalize all commerce in China. This market is also responsible for the world's largest online shopping day. Known as Singles' Day [4] and observed on November 11th (11/11), this unofficial celebration of people who are not in a romantic relationship leads to billions of dollars in sales for platforms like Tmall and Taobao. While Western shoppers are still more familiar with Cyber Monday and Black Friday, Singles' Day is also gaining traction outside China. It might soon become another major mark China's e-commerce leaves on Western culture.
The first marks were left when platforms like AliExpress entered the American and European markets with cheaper offerings. The advance of social commerce [5] provided China with additional means to establish its leadership in digital commerce. Platforms like ByteDance's Douyin and its counterpart for foreign markets, TikTok, integrate social experiences with shopping. With this business model, they challenge China's domestic e-commerce leaders, such as JD.com and Alibaba's Tmall, as well as the main Western e-commerce platforms.
Advanced data analytics has been a major force that has helped Chinese marketplaces excel. Temu, especially, seems to be very good at utilizing data insights to create personalized shopping experiences and optimize the supply chain. Digital China [6]. The goals mentioned in the plan cover everything from strengthening the infrastructure that supports data storage and transferring to promoting Chinese standards for global data governance. Such ambitions and their unfolding success in e-commerce come with certain risks for Western consumers, businesses, and the current world order. struggle [7] due to obscure laws and immense government powers to impose on businesses without giving reasons for their actions. There are also ethical concerns [8] associated with some e-commerce brands regarding forced labor, intellectual property violations, damage to the environment, and other issues. Thus, doing business with such companies is subject to moral scrutiny and might lead to reputational damage. Of course, this is not to say that the operations of Western companies are immune to such scrutiny. said to collect [9] data far beyond what is necessary for an e-commerce platform, requiring access to the device's microphone, camera, and contact list.
Furthermore, since Chinese companies are required to cooperate completely with the government's surveillance efforts, this might mean that the CCP has straightforward access to all such information about the consumers. Similar concerns led US officials to seek to force [10] the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok to a Western company or ban the app altogether in the US. tighter grip on the Internet [11] and free speech in general.
Thus, the Pacific Forum's report [12] on the Digital China strategy notes the risks of China's ideology-driven Internet and digital technologies standards shaping the future of cyberspace. If the Internet globally shifts toward isolationism based on ideology and hardcore censorship, the potential threats to cybersecurity and freedom all over the world are virtually limitless. Especially when the CCP has the most advanced tools to gather personal user data while simultaneously blocking the users themselves from free access to information.
Final conclusion: the importance of promoting free Internet
Chinese e-commerce companies seem to follow the CCP in establishing one-sided access to online information, which leads to consolidated power. They collect volumes of personal user data while blocking others from accessing public information. Thus, the answer from the West must be the opposite. Safeguarding private Internet users from undue surveillance must be balanced with promoting fair access to insights from public data. On the business side, utilizing improved anti-blocking technologies that allow scraping such public data from Chinese websites can help protect open Internet and fair competition globally.