As a super-large city, Shanghai has a large population, large traffic and dense functions, and one of the important advantages of the formation is data resources. New elements represented by data have increasingly become the core connotation of urban soft power, highlighting the characteristics of urban personality. By promoting the "one network communication office" of government services and the "one network unified management" of urban operation, Shanghai has built a first-class digital infrastructure, and has built significant advantages in the construction of new smart cities and the new online economy, laying a solid foundation for reconstructing data elements and digital rules and empowering the city's soft power to leap forward.
Build a digital platform to accelerate soft power "lane change overtaking"
Data is the "oil" of the digital economy, and as a new type of production factor, together with land, labor, capital, technology, etc., it constitutes the factor market and the source of soft power of the city. Data resources are the main input elements of the digital economy, with new characteristics such as online, intelligent, interactive and cross-border, which are fully and deeply integrated with manufacturing, productive service industry and living service industry, creating a new supply model, a new demand model and a new growth model. At the same time, based on a new generation of information technology, the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence, the importance of data elements in the construction of urban soft power is becoming increasingly prominent. Seizing the opportunity, strengthening data elements, and shaping new competitive advantages on the new soft power track can achieve the leap in Shanghai's urban soft power.
A new round of scientific and technological revolution and digital industry competition to accelerate the evolution, data flow leads the flow of information, technology, capital and talent flow, Shanghai urban soft power construction emerged new elements of data resource driving force, facing the reconstruction of data rules, data standards and other new variables, especially the reconstruction of data openness, data property rights, data protection, data flow, data pricing and other basic orders. Resource allocation efficiency stems from the flow of features. The first thing to reconstruct data elements is to smooth the flow of data elements on the basis of strengthening the integration and security protection of data resources, and accelerate the introduction of data flow rules. Integrate new elements such as data, unleash potential, and build the soft power of the cities of the future. The flow and configuration of data features depends more on rules than any other feature. This is not only because data resources involve aspects such as privacy and security, but also involve a comprehensive contest of economic and industrial competitiveness.
The logic of the soft power derived from the reconstruction of data resources lies in the increasing effect of scale rewards. Unlike traditional elements, data elements can be used not only reused, but also used by multiple people at the same time, resulting in lower or no costs for the same benefits. The sheer size of the market in megacities is a sine qua non for the realization of incremental returns on scale, so data resources are increasingly concentrated in megacities. Similarly, the soft power brought about by the reconstruction of data resources relies on digital platforming. Digital platforms provide mechanisms for market participants such as supply and demand parties and intermediaries to interact and trade online in different time and space. Once formed, such a platform will enable all participants to reduce costs and transform and expand the value chain. Based on this, it is not difficult to understand why Shanghai plans to build 100 digital empowerment platforms for manufacturing with industry influence by 2025, and realize 800,000 enterprises on the platform. Because this is not only one of the key contents of Shanghai's urban digital transformation, but also an important support for Shanghai to build the strategic advantage of urban soft power "lane change overtaking".
Promote institutional openness and crack the "card neck" problem of rules
Major countries and economies in the world are actively promoting the development of digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, and the competition pattern is becoming increasingly fierce. China has maintained its position as the world's second-largest digital economy. The United States, China and Europe have formed a three-legged pattern in the world digital economy. From a domestic point of view, China's digital economy is concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, showing an obvious pattern of urban agglomeration-driven development. Shanghai is an important city in China's digital economy, with a scale of more than 50% of GDP. An important symbol of Shanghai's urban soft power is to take the lead in fully realizing digital transformation, better represent the country to actively participate in the formulation of new international rules and standards for digital economy governance, better demonstrate China's digital economy sharing development concept and Shanghai governance plan to the world on behalf of the country, attach importance to the rule-making rights and discourse rights in key areas of the world's digital economy and trade, and must not ignore the "card neck" problem of international rules in international competition. The key to Shanghai's efforts to promote institutional openness such as rules, regulations, management, and standards lies in this.
More than 100 countries around the world have developed digital transformation plans or digital action plans. The United States and Europe began to lay out the digital economy development strategy as early as the 1990s, and in the past 20 years, special attention has been paid to seizing the dominance of international digital economy rules, and is currently mainly focused on data governance, algorithm governance, digital market governance and other fields. In terms of data governance, the United States and Europe have formed their own basic models. The European Union has built a personal information protection system and formed a single digital market, while the United States has tried to build its own leading multilateral data cross-border flow mechanism to compete for data resources. In its digital transformation, Shanghai should pay special attention to the institutional supply in the field of rules for the cross-border flow of data. In terms of algorithm governance, digital market governance and network ecological governance, the United States and Europe have not yet formed a specific model, and are generally in the exploratory stage, so this is an opportunity and breakthrough for Shanghai to actively participate in the international digital economy rule game. Shanghai should make full use of the existing heavyweight international platforms, take the initiative to set up global issues in the digital economy, and promote the formation of an international digital rules and governance system that is generally accepted by all parties and has international applicability. On the one hand, taking advantage of the increasingly close digital industrial chain in East Asia, accelerating the elimination of obstacles to cross-border data flow in East Asia, especially between China, Japan and South Korea, and taking the lead in promoting the formation of cross-border data flow rules in East Asia; on the other hand, Shanghai is building a bridgehead for the construction of the "Belt and Road", in addition to improving the digital infrastructure of the "Belt and Road", it is also necessary to condense the demands of countries along the "Belt and Road" and promote the formation of digital economy governance rules.
Reinvent data elements and adhere to a comprehensive leapfrog strategy
Comprehensively promoting digital transformation is a key move to shape the core competitiveness of cities in the future. According to the plan, by 2025, the construction of Shanghai International Digital City will form a basic framework, and by 2035, it will be built into an international digital capital with world influence. To build the soft power of the future, it is necessary to reshape data resources in the process of promoting the overall transformation of digitalization, integrate and release the potential of resources, which is a complex system engineering.
The first is the integrity and comprehensiveness of data resource reshaping. Digitalization has increasingly become the core driving force for economic and social development, comprehensively reshaping urban governance models and lifestyles. From the overall perspective of "the city is a living body and an organism", there is still a digital twin city, which also involves various aspects of urban economy, life, governance, etc., and also needs to strengthen system integration and overall improvement. For example, to build a world-class digital industry cluster, to build a new competitive advantage in the digital economy, etc.; to promote the full and balanced development of basic livelihood security such as public health, health, education, pension, employment, social security and so on; to create a new paradigm of "digital governance" in megacities...
The second is the leap forward in the reshaping of data resources. This is epitomized by the iterative evolution of data-driven cities and accelerated innovation. Establish a data element market, accelerate data legislation, improve the production, confirmation of rights, circulation, application, and income distribution mechanism of data elements, form a new governance force and creativity of megacities, and realize "Internet of Things, Digital Link, Smart Link, and Sharing".
Finally, there is the strategy of reshaping data resources. This requires all areas of the city to achieve data remodeling and digital rules reconstruction, adapt to new production relations, benchmark the digital transformation of global cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, paris, etc., and enhance the global allocation ability and influence of data elements themselves and other elements.
Author: Yin Desheng (Deputy Director and Professor, Research Center for Modern Chinese Cities, East China Normal University)
Editor: Fan Jing
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