3 Explainer – Digital China Wins The Future

Category: 3 Explainer

13 Posts

Organization breakdown of the Digital China Stack by Governance and Four Levels: Deployment, Innovation, Data, and Compute

1 Digital China, 2 Full Stack, 3 Explainer

Digital China Stack: Strategic System for the Digital Age

David Dorman and John Hemmings, “Digital China: The Strategy and Its Geopolitical Implications,” Issues and Insights, February 20, 2023

1 Digital China, 2 Strategic Design, 3 Explainer

Digital China: The Strategy and Its Geopolitical Implications

February 20, 2023

1 Digital China, 2 Strategic Drivers, 3 Explainer

Informatization and Digitalization Are Two Different Things

February 2, 2023

In 2017, the 19th Party Congress political report proposed to build “Cyber Great Power, Digital China, and Smart Society,” and Digital China was written into Party and state programmatic documents for the first time.

1 Digital Triad, 2 Strategic Design, 3 Explainer

China’s Elite Digital Strategies are Dependent, Not Hierarchical

"Grand Digital China," Xinhua Online, accessed August 7, 2025. This section of the Xinhua website includes articles describing the "grand" or "great" concept of a vibrant, beautiful Digital China with extensive technological and digital advancements across the entire economy and society.

1 Digital China, 2 Strategic Design, 3 Explainer

Meet the World’s First Digital Grand Strategy: Digital China

Digitalized Transformation of the Five Sphere Integrated Plan is tagged as one of Xi Jinping’s greatest theoretical achievements in the Sinicization of Marxism.

1 Digital China, 2 Strategic Ways, 3 Explainer

Digitalized Transformation of the Five Sphere Integrated Plan. Sounds Dense. Changes Everything.

February 23, 2022

Digital global labeled Digital China

1 Digital China, 2 Strategic Design, 3 Explainer

Digital China: No Other Digital Strategy Is Anything Like It

The structure and intent of Digital China can be outllined using the familiar “ends, ways, and means” nomenclature from Western strategy construction.

1 Digital China, 2 Strategic Design, 3 Explainer

Digital China’s Strategic Framework: Ends, Ways, and Means

February 22, 2021

Break-out of China's New Type Infrastructure concept

1 Digital Triad, 2 Strategic Means, 3 Explainer

New Type Infrastructure: Industrial Policy for the Digital Age

February 11, 2021

China Tower website highlights the Party's three elite digital strategies: Cyber Great Power, Digital China, and Smart Society

1 Digital Triad, 2 Strategic Design, 3 Explainer

China’s Digital Triad: How Beijing Plans to Build, Secure, and Transform the Digital State

October 18, 2017

Digital China: China's national digital strategy

Cyber Great Power: China's national cyber strategy

Smart Society: China's national intelligentization strategy

Digital Triad: Core strategic intersection of China's elite digital strategies

Strategic Design: Top-level view of national strategy

Strategic Ends: Defining the ultimate objectives

Strategic Ways: Methods and courses of action

Strategic Means: Resources and capabilities

Strategic Drivers: Forces of change and momentum

Supporting Strategies: Force multipliers and specialized engines

Full Stack: Spans the entire national system

Compute Layer: Produces computational capacity

Data Layer: Organizes and circulates data as a factor of production

Innovation Layer: Transforms data and compute into machine capability

Deployment Layer: Embeds machine capability across the economy, society, and the state

Governance Layer: Sets the rules for ownership, flow, control, and global influence

Analysis: Interpretive essays and open source analysis

Explainer: Foundational introductions to key concepts

Milestone: Key events, documents, and institutional updates

Translation: Translations and clarification of specialized terms

Update: Short notes, visuals, and references of interest

VOCABULARLY OF STRATEGY
Understanding the "Digital Triad" means speaking its language

“The report of the 19th National Party Congress stated that “the principal contradiction in our society has transformed into the contradiction between the people’s ever-growing need for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development.” This shift in contradictions is a change of global and historical significance, posing new demands on many aspects of our Party and country. Developing Digital China is about responding to these new changes and new demands, using digitalized means to resolve and address social contradictions. Against this backdrop, the central government explicitly put forward the new concept of building a “Smart Society” in the report.”
“The Mission of Digital China: Building a Smart Society,” Informatization of China Construction, August 29, 2018