Some article critiques that Internet companies in China copy ideas from the Silicon Valley, such as search engine, instant messenger and so on. But if they observe more closely they may find that many new technology or commercial innovations evolve in China—they are not only localized but also reinvented.
Taobao was founded by a middle school English teacher, it worked very hard to survive and eventually overtook eBay. Now it seems that eBay has disappeared in China. QQ survived by many micro innovation and eventually created WeChat that brings convenient services to more than 500 million of people around the world. Other successful examples are 360, Baidu, Xiaomi, LeTV, Huawei and so on.
New technologies need application scenarios and large-scale use to support their many improvements before they can usher great innovations or come to maturity. China's unified huge market provided such requirements. China's diverse geographical conditions and market demand have pushed China to create new technologies and massive applications have in turn provided customers' feedbacks to improve these technologies further, which provide environment for even newer business innovations.
The reasoning has actually been proved in areas such as China's high-speed rail, bridge construction technology, wireless communication technology and so on. China is turning high-end technologies more advanced, easier to use and dramatically cheaper.
On the occasion of the upcoming Second World Internet Conference, we may expect that China will bring more to the table to share with the Internet community.
The author, Wu Jiangang, is a lecturer at the Management School of the Shanghai University and a research fellow at the China Europe International Business School Lujiazui International Finance Research Center.
