Development Status of Digital Economy in Northeast Asian Countries and China’s Opportunities

: With the vigorous development of digital technology, the development of the digital economy has become an important component of the global economy. Against the background of negative growth of major global economies hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic, the steadily rising digital economy has become a key force to boost the global economy and an important engine to promote global economic development. Northeast Asian countries should use the dividends released by the digital economy to promote the coordinated development of digital technology innovation within the region, respond to technological revolution and industrial transformation, and build new international competitive advantages. This article provides a detailed overview of the current development status of digital economy in various countries in Northeast Asia, analyzes the challenges faced by countries in the region in developing cross-border digital economic and trade cooperation from three aspects: political mutual trust, digital divide, and network security. It further proposes to build a cross-border digital service trade platform in Northeast Asia, establish a China North Russia Far East digital free trade zone, so as to promote the deepening of cooperation and common development in digital trade within the region.


Introduction
In 2020, the COVID-19 swept the world, and the total global GDP declined, but the scale of the global digital economy rose steadily, with the added value reaching 32.6 trillion US dollars, and the contribution to GDP was 43.7%, up 2.5% year on year.In 2021, the added value of the global digital economy continued to rise, contributing 45.0% to GDP, a year-on-year increase of 14.4% (see Figure 1).The scale of added value in 2021 has increased by 66.15% compared to 2017, accounting for nearly three times the proportion of global GDP.Against the backdrop of negative growth in major global economies, the steadily rising digital economy has become a key force in boosting the global economy and an important engine for promoting global economic development China has elevated the development of its digital economy to a national strategy, which has entered a fast lane of development and has steadily ranked second in the world for several years.As shown in Figure 2, the overall scale of China's digital economy has increased from $3400.9 billion in 2016 to $7057.6 billion in 2021, an increase of 51.8%.The overall scale of the digital economy has increased from 30.3% of GDP in 2016 to 39.8% in 2021.It can be seen that the development of the digital economy has become a key driving force for sustained and stable growth of the national economy.In January 2022, the State Council issued The 14th Five Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy, which clearly stated that by 2025, China's digital economy will enter a period of comprehensive expansion.Looking ahead to 2035, the digital economy will enter a period of prosperity and maturity.The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further emphasized the need to accelerate the construction of a digital China.China's continued focus on highquality development of the digital economy, which will continue to play an accelerator role in reshaping the global economic structure and building a new pattern of global competition.

Fig. 2. China's GDP, Scale of added value in the digital economy, and Proportion to GDP
in 2016-2021 3,4 (Unit: USD100mn, %) Russia vigorously promotes its national digital development strategy and achieves economic restructuring and upgrading.In May 2017, Russian President Putin signed a presidential decree approving The 2017-2030 Information Society Development Strategy of the Russian Federation, indicating the direction and planning path for future information society construction and development of the Russian Federation.On July 28 of the same year, the government of the Russian Federation officially approved the Digital Economy Plan of the Russian Federation, setting the development goals and tasks for the digital economy before 2024.As shown in Figure 3, the overall scale of digital economy of the Russian Federation and its proportion to GDP have maintained stable growth.The overall scale of digital economy accounted for about 1% of GDP in 2012.From a numerical perspective, the development trend of digital economy of the Russian Federation in the past decade has been good.In 2020, under the impact of the COVID-19, the total GDP and overall scale of the digital economy showed a slight decline, but the proportion of the scale of the digital economy in GDP rose slightly.In 2021, the overall trend of economic development rebounded, with the overall scale of the digital economy accounting for 18.9% of GDP, reaching a historical high and increasing by nearly 20 times compared to 2012.Based on the above data and the direction of the national economic development strategy layout, the Russian Federation has effectively promoted the development of the digital economy and created a new economic growth pole.

The Overall Scale of Digital Economy of Japan
The development of Japan's digital economy started early, with frequent top-level designs.In 1994, the Japanese government proposed "electronic government" with the aim of becoming a highly informationized country.Subsequently, a series of national strategies focusing on digital information technology to promote Japan's economic and social development, such as e-Japan(2001), u-Japan(2004), and i-Japan(2009), were successively introduced.In 2012, Japan proposed Japan Revival Strategy, which explicitly promoted the revitalization of the Japanese economy through the integration and development of digital information technology and industries. 7n 2013, the Declaration on the Creation of the World's Most Advanced IT Countries and roadmap were introduced as symbols to promote the application of big data.With the strong promotion In 2020, the overall scale of the digital economy and its proportion to GDP increased, with a proportion to GDP of 52.0% in 2021.(unit: USD100mn, %)

International Comparison of the Overall Scale of Digital Economy in Northeast Asian Countries
In recent years, the top-level design of the digital economy strategic planning of Northeast Asian countries has frequently boosted the sustained and rapid growth of the scale of digital economy development, and the overall scale of the digital economy has entered the forefront of the world.According to the Global Digital Economy White Paper (2022) released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the overall scale of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the Russian Federation's digital economy showed an upward trend in 2021.Among them, the significant increase in the scale of China's digital economy was 24.1%.In 2021, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, and the Russian Federation ranked 2, 4, 7, and 13 in terms of digital economy scale, respectively.The digital economy development of the four countries in Northeast Asia has entered the world's advanced ranks.From the comparison between the GDP growth rate and digital economy growth rate of Northeast Asian countries in Table 1, it can be seen that in recent years, the digital economy has performed better than the GDP growth rate, which has a significant supporting effect on economic stability and growth.

Transformation of digital government construction in Northeast Asian countries
At present, the global digital economy is in a rapid development stage, and the construction of digital infrastructure and related institutional supply are the cornerstone of digital global governance.Many countries and international organizations around the world have accelerated the construction of digital rules and good order, especially in promoting global governance in areas such as multilateral cross-border digital platform services.According to the Electronic Government Development Index (EGDI) and Electronic Participation Index (EPI) shown in the United Nations E-government Survey Report, China, the Russian Federation, and Mongolia should comprehensively promote the construction of a new type of government operation model -"digital government", actively enhance and build the willingness and ability of information exchange technology to provide public services, and narrow the gap with Japan and Rep. of Korea in the construction of "digital government".According to the report, in a survey of the current status of local online services (LOSI) in developed cities around the world, Moscow, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo ranked 1, 7, 11, 19 in 2018 20 , 6, 9, 9, 24 in 2020 21 , 6, 30, 10, 14 in 2022 22 5, in the past three years, Tokyo, Japan has been a global leader and has become the most competitive city in the digital economy of Northeast Asian countries.Seoul, Rep. of Korea, has significantly improved its ranking compared to 2020 but has not yet reached the ranking position of 2019.However, its digital talent competitiveness ranks first in the world in terms of individual values, and its overall ranking lags slightly, mainly due to its economic and infrastructure competitiveness.China is a Northeast Asian country with two cities ranking in the top 30 globally, while Beijing and Shanghai are both in the middle and upper reaches of the list, whose economic and infrastructure competitiveness and digital talent competitiveness, however, need to be urgently improved.Moscow, the Russian Federation, will become one of the top 30 cities in the world in 2021, which focuses on the development of digital talents, and has a large space to improve the competitiveness of digital economy in global city.

ICT Industry Development in Northeast Asian Countries 5.1 China's ICT Industry Development
The development of China's ICT industry continues to improve, with the added value and GDP proportion of the ICT industry steadily increasing.According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in 2022, China's ICT industry has developed rapidly, with industry revenue reaching nearly 28.8 trillion yuan, an increase of about 7.8% year-on-year, accounting for about 23.1% of GDP.The added value of the ICT industry exceeded 9.2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%, accounting for about 7.4% of GDP.(Unit: trillion yuan, %)

The Russian Federation's ICT Industry Development
The ICT industry is the core part of the Russian Federation's digital economy, contributing over 90% of the added value of the digital economy.However, in recent years, the proportion of the added value of the Russian ICT industry to ICT has not changed much, and its contribution to economic growth is not high.The added value of the ICT industry accounted for 3.1% of GDP in 2020 and 2.9% in 2019. 31

Japan's ICT Industry Development
According to data from the official website of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, the growth rate of Japan's ICT industry is stable, and the sales revenue of the information and communication industry in 2020 was 53449.8 billion yen. 32From the average contribution rate of economic growth over the past five years, the contribution rate of the ICT industry to economic growth from 2000 to 2019 has been positive, indicating that the progress of the digital economy can bring positive effects to economic development. 33

II. Challenges in Digital Economic and Trade Cooperation in Northeast Asian countries 1.Challenges of Political Mutual Trust
The unfavorable international situation affects the overall economic and trade cooperation in Northeast Asia.In recent years, the United States has been interacting with its allies, using its monopoly position in international multilateral mechanisms to encircle China in terms of technology policy coordination, technology standards and specifications formulation, and technology governance models, block the flow of advanced technology and talent, and strictly controlled the import and export of core components.At the same time, the unstable political gaming situation in Northeast Asia countries has caused significant obstacles to the smooth flow of economic and trade cooperation, which is also not conducive to the normal cooperation of the digital economy.

Challenges of Digital Divide
Countries in Northeast Asia have increased their efforts to focus on the development of the digital economy, but the overall level of digital economy development varies among countries.The digital economy of Japan and Rep. of Korea started early, and the overall level of digital economy development ranks among the top countries in Northeast Asia.The development of the Russia Federation and Mongolia are relatively lagging, and there is a "digital divide" between countries within the region.From the perspective of digital infrastructure, according to data released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the level of network infrastructure construction in various countries in Northeast Asia is uneven, and the proportion of computer households in Mongolia is lower than the global average.From the perspective of digital technology, according to the 2020 GCI index, there is a gap in the development level of new generation information technology fields such as broadband, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things among Northeast Asian countries.As shown in Table 8, the overall level of new generation information technology in Japan and Rep. of Korea has entered the world's advanced ranks, and China has reached the upper middle level, while the Russia Federation is relatively backward.China has developed rapidly in the fields of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, with two indices scoring higher than Switzerland (63/45), ranking third in the total score, and ranking first in the world, and, however, there are significant shortcomings in the field of the Internet of Things; the Russia Federation's scores in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things are all lower than the world average, and there is still a significant gap in the development level of ICT core technology compared to China, Japan, and Rep. of Korea; Mongolia is not included in the GCI index survey.

Challenges of Cybersecurity
In the current complex and ever-changing international situation, cybersecurity issues in various countries around the world are becoming increasingly prominent.While developing the digital economy rapidly, countries around the world are striving to improve the network supervision system mechanism and supervision system, advance the level of digital security assurance, and strengthen the construction of cybersecurity infrastructure.Northeast Asian countries attach varying degrees of importance to ensuring network security.According to the Global Cybersecurity Index released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in 2020, Japan, Rep. of Korea, and the Russian Federation ranked among the top ten, indicating their importance to national information security.China, ranking 33, urgently to improve its ability to maintain and defend its information infrastructure network security, effectively safeguard national cyberspace sovereignty and security, and jointly build a community with a shared future in cyberspace.Mongolia's ranking has dropped from 15 in 2014 to 120 in 2020, which implies its cybersecurity infrastructure too weak to fully recognize the information security issues brought about by digital globalization.UNCTAD estimates that the global value of ecommerce sales (B2B and B2C) reached almost $26.7 trillion in 2019.This corresponded to about 30% of GDP and represented an increase of 4% from 2018 ($25.6 trillion).In 2018 and 2019, China, Japan, and Rep. of Korea ranked among the top ten in terms of e-commerce sales, whose total sales of e-commerce accounting for 27.09% and 27.45% of global e-commerce sales.(Table 10)

Significant results in cost reduction and efficiency improvement in the construction of digital platforms in the three northeastern provinces of China
According to customs data from the three northeastern provinces of China, in 2022, the trade volume between Heilongjiang Province and the Russian Federation reached RMB 185473.69 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.3%;The trade volume between Liaoning Province and the Russian Federation was RMB 35907.84 million yuan, an increase of 25.2% year-on-year; The trade volume between Jilin Province and the Russian Federation was RMB 17327.25 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 65.0%.The prospects for economic and trade cooperation between the three northeastern provinces of China and the Russian Federation are broad.
In August 2020, Liaoning Province further promoted the first logistics infrastructure project between China and the Russian Federation to drive smooth trade through facility connectivity.By promoting the construction of four major tasks, including the construction of a Sino-Russian customs cooperation platform, overseas warehouses, a hub port for China Europe freight trains, and a "channel+free trade" window with the Russian Federation, it vigorously promoted the development of the Belerast logistics center project, shortened customs clearance time, and reduced trade costs, so as to build it into a demonstration project for modern logistics cooperation.
In August 2021, the "single window" physical platform for international trade and cross-border ecommerce public service platform in Heilongjiang Province were put into operation.The service process of "one point access, one submission, one inspection, one click tracking, and one click processing" effectively reduces customs clearance costs for enterprises and provides 7×24-hour customs clearance consultation service.After the phased operation, the overall clearance time for imports in is 19.7 hours, ranking 6th in the country and 1st in the four northeastern provinces and regions; the overall customs clearance time for exports is 0.41 hours, ranking fifth in the country and first in the four provinces and regions in Northeast China.
In 2022, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in Jilin Province increased by 68.1%.The import and export volume of Changchun Xinglong and Hunchun Comprehensive Bonded Zone increased by 318.9% and 165.6% respectively.Since September 2022, the Hunchun Railway Port has been operating 24/7, equipped with additional regulatory personnel and laboratory testing equipment to ensure that customs staff are on duty all the time and facilitate enterprise customs clearance.
Jilin province has also actively promoted the efficiency and energy increase of port channels to the Russian Federation, and made every effort to build a bridgehead for Hunchun's economic and trade cooperation with the Russian Federation, a marine economic development demonstration zone, a cross-border e-commerce comprehensive demonstration zone, a comprehensive bonded zone, a pilot project for the implementation and processing of mutual trade, and a pilot project for the way of market procurement trade have been approved successively.The construction of a "one center and five plates" economic and trade cooperation hub for Russia has been accelerated. .The continuous improvement of digital platforms helps to build a digital free trade zone.

Focusing on high-end think tank and forum for the development of the digital economy to help the integration of "industry+education+research+application" in China's Digital Economy
On February 20, 2023, Northeast Asia Forum for Digital Economy Industry Cooperation was grandly held in Shenyang, China, which focused on the development and future of the digital economy in Northeast Asia, with the theme of "Digital Driving, Industry Innovation and Win-win Cooperation".Famous experts, scholars, and representatives of leading enterprises in the field were invited to gather together to empower and build a new development pattern for the digital economy, in order to establish approach to connect "government+industry+academia+research+financ e+services", to promote the digitalization, networking, and intelligent development of traditional industries in Northeast China.On August 23 of the same year, the 2023 Northeast Asia Digital Economy Development Forum, with the theme of "Digital Empowerment and Shaping Smart Industries", was held in Changchun, Jilin, China, whose aim was to further promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy, empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and promote the birth of new industries, new formats, and new models.More than 200 industry experts and scholars, as well as representatives from various sectors of industry, academia, and research, jointly focused on topics such as regional collaboration, digital cooperation, and industrial digital exploration in Northeast Asia, providing suggestions and suggestions for the digital transformation of cities in Northeast Asia.China has established platforms for learning and exchange in the digital economy, focusing on cutting-edge perspectives in the field of digital technology, exchanging and interacting with relevant experts and scholars from Northeast Asian countries and internationally leading digital technology enterprises, sharing the achievements of digital resource construction, and promoting the integrated development of the digital economy through industry, academia, research, and application.

Conclusion
With the innovation of new generation information technologies such as the Internet, cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, the deep integration of the digital economy and traditional industries has led to comprehensive changes and breakthroughs in business structure and industry concepts.The global traditional industries are accelerating their transformation and upgrading towards digitization, networking, and intelligence, and the scale of the digital economy continues to expand.In response to the global trend of digital development, countries in Northeast Asia seize the new opportunities brought by the rapid development of the digital economy, focus on the development of the digital economy, and expand their cooperation to continuously extend in depth and breadth.As the second largest digital economy in the world for many consecutive years, China's digital economy accounted for 18% of the total digital economy scale among 47 major countries in the world in 2021, and 64% of the total digital economy scale in the four countries in Northeast Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia). 45hina should further upgrade its strategic position in the digital economy, firmly grasp the initiative in development, and promote the development of the digital economy to a new level.Firstly, it should seize the initiative in digital technology innovation and enhance the independent innovation ability of Chinese brands.Taking Huawei mobile phone chips as an example, the Huawei server chip Kunpeng 920 can already be independently produced, and its data center chips can be completely independent of other countries' supply chains.The second is to strengthen government guidance and establish a sound digital talent incentive system.From the perspective of national strategy, the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly states that "the talent is the first resource".Digital economy talents are the primary resource for digital development.Taking JD Technology as an example, on February 14, 2022, more than 130 recruitment information was released, with the highest demand for various product managers and development engineers.Job salaries range from 30000 to 70000 RMB yuan per month, with some high-level architects earning salaries of up to 110000 RMB yuan and receiving 15 months of salary per year.Therefore, China needs to fully implement the digital China strategy, accelerate the development of the digital economy becoming stronger, better, and larger, so as to achieve high-quality development of the digital economy.

Fig. 1 .
Global GDP, Scale of added value in the digital economy, and Proportion to GDP in 2016-2021 1,2 (unit: trillion US dollars, %) I. Development Status of Digital Economy in Northeast Asian Countries 1.The overall scale of digital economy in Northeast Asian Countries 1.1 The overall scale of digital economy of China

Digital Infrastructure Construction in Northeast Asian Countries Nowadays
, digital development has become one of the important directions for countries around the world to plan economic growth.Northeast Asian countries have actively accelerated the construction of digital infrastructure in line with the trend of digital global development, with significant progress.According to the Measuring Digital Development: Facts and Data (2022) released by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in 2021 many key indicators related to digital development in Northeast Asian countries, including fixed and mobile phone signing rates, fixed and mobile broadband signing rates, LTE/WiMAX coverage, and the proportion of individuals using the Internet, were higher than the world average.As shown in Table 2, in recent years, Northeast Asian countries have continued to make efforts in the construction of internet facilities.Japan and Rep. of Korea have the most developed internet development, with a relatively stable scale of internet users.In 2021, the proportion of internet users in Rep. of Korea reached 97.6%, ranking first among countries in East and North Asia.The development of the internet in China and Mongolia is relatively lagging behind, but there has been a significant improvement in recent years.Between 2015 and 2021, the proportion of internet users in China increased from 50.3% to 73.1%;The proportion of internet users in Mongolia has increased from 22.5% to 84.3%, with a growth rate of 275 times, indicating rapid development.The Russian Federation's internet development indicators have maintained a steady growth trend

Table 2 .
Key indicators of Internet user data in Northeast Asian Countries in 2021

Table 5 .
Overall ranking of digital economy competitiveness in major global cities in 202129Next is Japan, which is 3 fewer than in 2019; China has one more company than in 2019; Rep. of Korea has one more company than in 2019, ranking from fifth to fourth; there are 4 in Taiwan, China.There are no digital enterprises of the Russian Federation and Mongolia selected.From the geographical distribution of the top 100 comprehensive competitiveness of digital enterprises, it can be seen that the Russian Federation and Mongolia have a significant gap with other countries in Northeast Asia in promoting the Digital transformation and upgrading of real economy enterprises.From the perspective of rankings, the top ten enterprises in Northeast Asia are China's Huawei, Rep. of Korea's Samsung, and China's Alibaba Group, which are ranked sixth, seventh, and tenth respectively, which have always been among the world's leading enterprises, maintaining large-scale growth and stable growth rates.

Table 6 .
Geographical Distribution of the Global Top 100 Digital Enterprises in 2020 30 ICT field, making it new blue ocean driven by innovative economy.In 2020, the ICT industry drove a total annual export volume of 183.6 billion US dollars, industrial imports of 112.6 billion US dollars, and a trade surplus of 71 billion US dollars.According to the data from the public portal website ITSTAT launched by the Ministry of Information and Communications of Rep. of Korea, the scale of the ICT industry and its proportion to GDP have steadily increased in recent years, and the development prospects of the ICT industry are promising.ICT 산업 규모, https://www.itstat.go.kr/itstat/kor/tblInfo/TblInfoList.html?vw_cd=MT_ATITLE.

Table 7 .
Key indicators for development of Network infrastructure in Northeast Asian countries in 2021

Table 8 .
Global connectivity index on the Northeast Asian countries in 2020

Table 9 .
Ranking of global cybersecurity index on the Northeast Asian countries in 2014-202035