Below is a list of specialized terms used by the Chinese Communist Party to describe its three elite digital strategies: Cyber Great Power, Digital China, and Smart Society.
The terms are grouped into four standard categories: Strategic Plans, Terms of Art, Theoretical Terms, and Technical Terms. I’ve also added a fifth general category for notable informal language, including metaphors, aphorisms, and slang related to Digital China.
Understanding this vocabulary, and how and why it evolves, is essential to grasping the Party’s digital strategies, their intent, objectives, achievements, challenges, and the ideological narratives that drive them.
Importantly, the Party’s strategic plans, terms of art, and theoretical concepts should not be dismissed as slogans or buzzwords, as some Western experts have suggested, including in the case of Digital China. These terms are central to how the Party sets strategic direction and ideological tone in national digital policy, both of which are critical components of China’s governance system. This specialized vocabulary is public and is actively reinforced through ongoing media education efforts targeting Party members, government officials, and the general public.
“Strategic plans” (战略部署)1 are systemic, integrated strategies formulated by the Chinese Communist Party to solve pressing issues facing the country. Strategic plans that touch on informatization and digitalization include Cyber Great Power, Digital China, and Smart Society.
| Cyber Great Power (网络强国) | Cyber Great Power designates the top-level design, national strategy, and end state to become a “world class” (世界一流) great power in the cyber domain. It seeks to build a uniform, nationally-integrated framework of cybersecurity and informatization systems (rules, institutions, and technology) with global reach and impact. Cyber Great Power can be achieved independently of Digital China and/or Smart Society. |
| Digital China (数字中国) | Digital China designates the top level design, “global” （整体) strategy (beginning in 2023), and end state for national informatization. It seeks digital transformation at the societal level (economy, government, society, culture, and environment) to enhance “core competitiveness,” create a “Smart Society,” and safeguard the Party in support of building a Modernized Socialist Great Power. Digital China’s success is dependent on the success of Cyber Great Power. |
| Smart Society (智慧社会) | Smart Society designates the end state for national “intelligentization,” top level design of “New Type Smart Cities,” and the urbanized expression of the digitalized transformation of socialist modernization. It seeks modernized social governance, elimination of the digital divide, the widest development of science and technology talent, and improvements to the “People’s Livelihood” through government efficiency and social equity. Smart Society’s success is dependent on the success of Digital China. |
“Terms of Art” (提法 or “tifa”) are specialized language formulations used by the Communist Party to encapsulate political direction, ideas, and initiatives. Tifa that touch on informatization and digitalization include “Build Digital China,” “Accelerate Digitalized Development,” and “New Type Infrastructure.”
| Accelerate (or Accelerating) Digitalized Development (加快数字化发展) | Accelerate Digitalized Development is a Communist Party term of art (or tifa) tied to the exhortation to digitalize the construction of economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization (Five-Sphere Integrated Plan), often expressed as simply “Digitalized Development.” In full form, the term of art is expressed as “Accelerate Digitalized Development and Build Digital China” (加快数字化发展 建设数字中国). The tifa “Accelerate Digitalized Development and Build Digital China” appeared first in the 14th Five-Year Plan and 14th National Informatization Plan and it is referenced regularly in state-run media. The two components of this tifa, “Accelerate Digitalized Development” and “Build Digital China,” are also used individually. |
| Build (or Building) Digital China (建设数字中国) | Build Digital China is a Communist Party term of art (or tifa) tied to the exhortation to implement the Digital China strategy, often expressed simply as “Digital China.” In full form, the term of art is expressed as “Accelerate Digitalized Development and Build Digital China” (加快数字化发展 建设数字中国). The tifa “Accelerate Digitalized Development and Build Digital China” appeared first in the 14th Five-Year Plan and 14th National Informatization Plan and it is referenced regularly in state-run media. The two components of this tifa, “Accelerate Digitalized Development” and “Build Digital China,” are also used individually. |
| New Type Infrastructure Construction (新型基础设施建设) or NTI2 | NTI is a Communist Party term-of-art (or tifa) used to describe a major Party technology mission to accelerate defined categories of digital infrastructure. The initiative specifically seeks to develop and build the digital infrastructure deemed essential to realize China’s three elite digital strategies: Cyber Great Power, Digital China, and Smart Society. In the case of Digital China, NTI supports construction of the strategy’s three resource requirements: a Data Element Resource System, an Information Infrastructure System, and an Information Technology Industrial Ecosystem. NTI, which includes the digital transformation of traditional infrastructure as well as the construction of new digital infrastructure, is now being implemented on a national scale at a pace that has been accelerated on multiple occasions since 2018. |
Theoretical Terms (理论术语) express “China’s reality through the creative application of Marxist theory.” With the coming of the digital age, the Communist Party has created new terms, or captured existing terms, to express a new specific reality that combines national informatization and socialist modernization. For instance, the important and often seen theoretical terms, “Informatization” (the application of information technology) and “Digitalization” (adding value to data), mean two different things. The terms are quite specific as used by the Chinese Communist Party (and that includes the Party’s army).
| Digitalization (数字化)3 | Digitalization is the process of applying value to data and has occurred in three historical stages paralleling informatization: (1) The “Digitalization of Offices” stage is characterized by personal computers as the basic platform, business offices as the informatization setting, and a low volume of structured data; (2) The “Digitalization of Society” stage is characterized by the Internet as the basic platform, all of human society as the informatization setting, and a growing volume of unstructured data; and (3) The “Digitalization of Things” stage,” which is China’s current stage, is characterized by the Internet of Things is the basic platform, the entire physical world is the informatization setting, and a growing volume, diversity, and speed of big data. |
| Informatization (信息化) | Informatization is the process of applying information technology to society and has occurred in three historical stages: (1) The “Digitization” stage(数字化4) began in the 1980s with stand-alone (single machine) applications as the main feature; (2) The “Networkization” stage (网络化) began in the mid 1990s with Internet applications as the main feature; and (3) the “Intelligentization” stage (智能化) is the current stage for China (beginning in the 2015-2017 timeframe) with data mining and data integration as the main features. |
| New Stage of Informatization (新阶段) | The New Stage of Informatization is the “Intelligentization Stage” which China entered in the 2015-2017 timeframe. This stage is the “major context” driving the construction of Digital China. |
Technical Terms (科技术语), as in the West, carry a specific meaning within a specified field of study. In the field of information and communications technology, official PRC definitions of technical terms can include strategic plans, terms-of-art, and theoretical terms. For Digital China, New Type Infrastructure technology categories and sub-categories are considered technical terms.
| Blockchain (区块链) | Blockchain is a New Type Infrastructure (NTI) Tier Three “New Technology.” Blockchain is a new type of database software that integrates distributed networks, encryption, smart contracts, and other technologies. It features decentralization, trusted consensus, immutability, and traceability. It is primarily used to address trust and security issues in data circulation. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Confidential Computing (密态计算) | Confidential computing refers to the use of cryptography, trusted hardware, and system security technologies to ensure that computing data is available but invisible, while maintaining confidentiality of computational results. This supports the construction of complex combined computations, provides full-chain computing security, and prevents data leakage and misuse. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data (数据) | Data is any record of information, whether electronic or otherwise. Data is referred to variously as raw data, derived data, data resources, data products and services, data assets, or data elements. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Analysis (数据分析) | Data analysis refers to the process of organizing, studying, reasoning, and summarizing data using specific techniques and methods to extract useful information, discover patterns, and form conclusions. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Asset (数据资产) | Data cleaned and given a book value. Data assets refer to data resources owned or controlled by individuals or businesses that can bring future economic benefits to the enterprise and are recorded in physical or electronic form. Data assets are datasets in cyberspace that possess data rights (exploration rights, usage rights, ownership rights), are valuable, measurable, and accessible. Baidu Encyclopedia 数据资产 |
| Data Circulation (数据流通) | Data circulation refers to the process by which data flows between different entities, including data openness, sharing, trading, and exchange. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Element (数据要素) | Data as a factor of production actively driving economic activity. Data elements (or data factors) refer to data resources that are invested in production and business activities and participate in value creation. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Governance (数据治理) | Data governance refers to the process of improving data quality, security, and compliance, and promoting its effective use. It encompasses organizational data governance, industry data governance, and social data governance. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Intelligence (数据智能)5 | Data intelligence is the process of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze big data. |
| Data Lake (数据湖) | A data lake is a highly scalable data storage architecture designed to store large amounts of raw and derived data from a variety of sources in various formats, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Mining (数据挖掘) | Data mining is a method of data analysis. It is the process of extracting information or value hidden in data through techniques such as statistical analysis, machine learning, pattern recognition, and expert systems. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Processing (数据处理) | Data processing includes the collection, storage, use, processing, transmission, provision, and disclosure of data. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Processor (数据处理者) | A data processor is an individual or organization that independently determines the purpose and method of data processing. (NDA Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Products and Services (数据产品和服务) | Data products and services refer to processed data outputs and data services, formed through data processing, that can meet specific needs. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Resources (数据资源) | Raw data. Data resources are data with the potential to create value, typically referring to data sets recorded and stored electronically, machine-readable, and available for social reuse. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Security (数据安全) | Data security refers to taking necessary measures to ensure that data is effectively protected and legally used, as well as the ability to maintain a continuous state of security. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Trading (数据交易) | Data trading refers to a trading activity between a data supplier and a data demander (recipient), in which specific forms of data serve as the subject matter and currency or other equivalents are used as consideration (payment). (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Visualization (数据可视化) | Data visualization refers to the use of graphical tools such as statistical charts, graphs, and maps to clearly and effectively convey the useful information contained in data, allowing data users to better understand and analyze the data. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Data Warehouse (数据仓库) | A data warehouse is a database used to permanently store data after data preparation. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Digital Consumption (数字消费) | Digital consumption refers to consumer activities and consumption patterns enabled by digital technologies and applications. It encompasses not only the consumption of intelligent digital technologies, products, and services, but also the digitalization and intelligentization of consumption content, channels, and environments, as well as new consumption models that deeply fuse online and offline activities. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Digital Economy (数字经济) | Digital economy refers to a series of economic activities in which data resources serve as the key factor of production, modern information networks act as important carriers, and the effective use of information and communication technology drives efficiency improvements and economic structure optimization. (National Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Classification of the Digital Economy and Its Core Industries, 2021) |
| Digital Industrialization (数字产业化) | Digital industrialization refers to the process of transforming digital technologies such as mobile communications and artificial intelligence into digital products and services, and transforming data into resources and factors, thereby forming new digital industries, new business forms, and new models. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Digital Intelligence (数字智能)6 | Digital intelligence is the development and “smart” application of digital technology, tools, and knowledge. |
| Eastern Data, Western Computing Project (东数西算工程) | The “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project is a major project that brings data and demand generated by economic activities in the eastern region to western regions for computation and processing. It coordinates and plans the layout, networking, power, energy consumption, computing power, and data management of data centers. For example, business scenarios like AI model training and inference, and machine learning, can be migrated from eastern regions to western regions rich in wind, solar, and hydropower through the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” approach, achieving coordinated development between the east and west. Accelerating the development of the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project will effectively stimulate innovation in data elements, accelerate the processes of digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, and foster the emergence of new technologies, new industries, new business formats, and new models, in support of High Quality Development of the economy. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Federated Learning (联邦学习) | Federated learning refers to a model in which multiple participants collaborate to complete a machine learning task by exchanging intermediate computational results in a privacy-protected manner, while ensuring that their original private data remains within a trusted domain defined by the data owner. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| High Quality Development of the Digital Economy (数字经济高质量发展) | High Quality Development of the Digital Economy refers to a new stage of digital economic development aimed at strengthening, optimizing, and expanding the digital economy, centered around accelerating the cultivation of New Quality Productive Forces, with marketized reform in the allocation of data elements as the primary focus. This will be achieved through the coordinated improvement of basic systems for data and digital infrastructure, the comprehensive promotion of the deep fusion of digital technology and the real economy, and the continuous improvement of digital economic governance capabilities and the level of international cooperation. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| High Speed Data Network (高速数据网) | High-speed data networks are designed for data circulation and utilization scenarios, leveraging technologies such as network virtualization and software-defined networking (SDN) to provide data transmission services with flexible bandwidth, security, reliability, and high transmission efficiency. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Industrial Digitalization (产业数字化) | Industrial digitalization refers to the process by which traditional industries, such as agriculture, industry, and services, improve operational efficiency and reduce production and operating costs by applying digital technologies, collecting and integrating data, and mining the value of data resources. This process, in turn, reshapes thinking and cognition, holistically reshapes organizational management models, systemically transforms production and operational processes, and continuously improves total factor productivity. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Industrial Internet (产业互联网): Industrial Internet for industries at large. “产业互联网” and “工业互联网” are both translated into English as “Industrial Internet,” which does not convey the important difference between the broader use of 产业互联网 for industries at large, and the narrower use of 工业互联网 for the manufacturing and industrial sectors only. | Industrial Internet refers to the use of digital technologies and data elements to promote data integration and interconnection across entire industrial chains, enabling the digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized development of industries. It drives the reorganization and transformation of business processes, organizational structures, and modes of production, facilitates coordinated transformation of upstream and downstream industrial chains, and fosters fused online–offline development. Entire industries will achieve cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and High Quality Development, thereby forming a new system for industrial collaboration, resource allocation, and value creation. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Industrial Internet (工业互联网): Industrial Internet for manufacturing and industrial sectors only. “产业互联网” and “工业互联网” are both translated into English as “Industrial Internet,” which does not convey the important difference between the broader use of 产业互联网 for industries at large, and the narrower use of 工业互联网 for the manufacturing and industrial sectors only. | The Industrial Internet is a New Type Infrastructure Tier Three application model, and industrial ecosystem that deeply integrates a new generation of information and communication technology with the industrial economy. By comprehensively connecting people, machines, things, and systems, an entirely new manufacturing and services system is created that covers the entire manufacturing chain and entire value chain. From industry to manufacturing, the Industrial Internet provides a means of achieving digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized development. The Industrial Internet is an important cornerstone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. (China Academy of the Industrial Internet, 2021) |
| Lake Warehouse Integration (湖仓一体) | Lake warehouse integration refers to a new, open storage architecture that connects data warehouses and data lakes, combining the high performance and management capabilities of data warehouses with the flexibility of data lakes. The underlying layer supports the coexistence of multiple data types, enabling data sharing. The upper layer can access data through a unified, encapsulated interface, supporting real-time query and analysis. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Market-Based Allocation of Data Elements (数据要素市场化配置) | The market-based allocation of data elements refers to the allocation of data, a new production factor, through market mechanisms. It aims to establish a more open, secure, and efficient data circulation environment and continuously unlock the value of data elements. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Metadata (元数据) | Metadata is data that defines and describes specific data. It provides information about the structure, characteristics, and relationships of the data, facilitating its organization, retrieval, understanding, and management. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| National Unified Computing Power Network (全国一体化算力网) | The National Unified Computing Power Network refers to a digital infrastructure that uses information network technology to enable highly integrated, large-scale scheduling and operation of various computing power resources nationwide. As the 2.0 version of the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project, it features four key characteristics: intensification, integration, coordination, and value creation. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Platform Economy (平台经济) | According to the, the platform economy is an economic system built on digital technologies, supported by platforms, and driven by data and network-based collaboration. The platform economy is an important new economic form in the digital economy era. (Beijing Party Member Education Network, April 2025) |
| Privacy Preserving Computing (隐私保护计算) | Privacy preserving computing refers to a type of information technology that analyzes and computes data without disclosing the original data to the data provider. This ensures that data remains “available but invisible” throughout the entire data flow process, including generation, storage, computation, application, and destruction. Common technical solutions for privacy-preserving computing include secure multi-party computation, federated learning, trusted execution environments, and secret computing. Common underlying technologies include obfuscated circuits, oblivious transfer, secret sharing, and homomorphic encryption. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Public Data (公共数据) | Public data refers to data generated by Party and government organs, enterprises, and institutions at all levels in the course of performing their duties or providing public services in accordance with the law. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Raw Data (原始数据) | Raw data is data that is initially generated or collected at the source and has not been processed. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Secure Multiparty Computation (安全多方计算) | Secure multi-party computation (SMC) involves multiple participants in a distributed network, each holding secret data. Each participant wishes to jointly compute a function using this data as input. Each participant is required to be unable to access any input information from other participants, except for the computational results and any information that is intended to be publicly available. This research primarily addresses the problem of secure multi-party collaborative computation without a trusted third party. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Semi-Structured Data (半结构化数据) | Semi-structured data refers to a type of data model structure that does not conform to the tabular format of a relational database or other data tables, but contains relevant markers used to separate semantic elements and to organize records and fields into hierarchical levels. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Structured data (结构化数据) | Structured data refers to a form of data representation in which each record, composed of data elements, has the same structure, and can be effectively described using a relational model. | 结构化数据是指一种数据表示形式，按此种形式，由数据元素汇集而成的每个记录的结构都是一致的，并且可以使用关系模型予以有效描述。(NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Trusted Data Processor (受托数据处理者) | A trusted data processor is an individual or organization that processes data on behalf of another person. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Trusted Execution Environment (可信执行环境) | A Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a software runtime environment built on hardware-level isolation and secure boot mechanisms to ensure confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and non-repudiation of data and code related to security-sensitive applications.(NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Unstructured Data (非结构化数据) | Unstructured data refers to data that does not have a predefined model or is not organized in a predefined way. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
| Whole-of-City (All Domain) Digitalized Transformation (城市全域数字化转型) | Whole-of-City (All Domain) Digitalized Transformation refers to a new model of urban High Quality Development in which cities, guided by the overarching goal of comprehensively deepening data integration, connectivity, and utilization, make combined use of digital technologies and institutional innovation tools to reshape their technological architecture, transform urban management processes, and achieve deep fusion of industry and city. This model promotes efficiency gains across all domains of digital transformation, comprehensively enhances supporting capabilities, and optimizes the entire transformation ecosystem. (NDA, Glossary of Common Terms in the Data Domain (Batch One), December 2024) |
Other interesting (but non-formal) language relating to Digital China including metaphors, aphorisms, and slang.
| Information “Aorta” (信息“大动脉”) | The information “aorta,” or often just the “aorta,” is a term created by Xi Jinping in 2016 that quickly became the standard PRC media metaphor for “New Type Infrastructure” and a key part of the Party narrative on Digital China. |
Footnotes
- There is no standard translation of the specialized term “战略部署.” Other common translations are “strategic deployment” and “strategic initiative.” For clarity, I generally reserve translating “战略部署” as “strategic deployment” when used in the context of force dispositions, especially military. I reserve “strategic initiative” for the standard term “战略举措.” ↩︎
- The full term-of-art, “New Type Infrastructure Construction,” (Eight characters: 新型基础设施建设), is often abbreviated to simply “New Type Infrastructure” (Six characters: 新型基础设施), and an even more abbreviated three-character form (Three characters: 新基建). The acronym “NTI” is not used in or by China. I coined it for ease of writing on this blog and elsewhere. ↩︎
- Digitization and Digitalization are the same word in Chinese, understood and translated by context. ↩︎
- Digitization and Digitalization are the same word in Chinese, understood and translated by context. ↩︎
- Both Data Intelligence and Digital Intelligence are abbreviated “数能,” understood and translated by context. ↩︎
- Both Data Intelligence and Digital Intelligence are abbreviated “数能,” understood and translated by context. ↩︎
Your questions, comments, additions, and corrections are always welcome! Please contact me at digitalchinawinsthefuture@gmail.com