What Does "Digital China Wins The Future" Really Mean?

“Whoever can better recognize and seize the general trend of digitalization, and better adapt to and lead the developmental direction of new forces of production, will be able to win the new omnidirectional competition for comprehensive national power.”
“Digital China Wins the Future,” Outlook Weekly, Governance Events Column, Issue 2022-08, February 19, 2022

Digital China is not a branding exercise. It is a strategic vision for national development and global competition. And it is, unmistakably, about winning: winning the digital age.

The title of this website, “Digital China Wins The Future,” originates from the opening section of the Cyberspace Administration of China’s 2017 “Digital China Development Report.” But the phrase has deeper ideological roots. Its lineage traces back to the 2016 “Outline of the National Informatization Development Strategy,” which itself drew inspiration from a 2013 speech by Xi Jinping. Since 2016, the phrase, when tied to Digital China, has echoed throughout Party media, culminating in its appearance as the cover story of Outlook Weekly magazine on February 19, 2022.

Taken together, these references show that “winning the future” (赢得未来) is not a passing slogan. It is an idiomatic expression in contemporary Chinese Communist Party political language, one that has taken on growing theoretical weight in the Party lexicon, especially in discussions on informatization and digital transformation. Alastair Iain Johnston has provided valuable context on its frequency and use in official PRC writing and speeches.

When used in the context of Digital China, however, the phrase has a specific meaning. It centers on informatization: the integration of information technology into every dimension of national development. The 2016 Outline made this connection explicit:

With further developments in world multi-polarization, economic globalization, cultural diversification, and social informatization; and profound change in the global governance system; whoever occupies the high ground of informatization will be able to seize the first opportunity, win the advantage, win security, and win the future.

随着世界多极化、经济全球化、文化多样化、社会信息化深入发展，全球治理体系深刻变革，谁在信息化上占据制高点，谁就能够掌握先机、赢得优势、赢得安全、赢得未来。

The 2017 Digital China Development Report reiterated the same point, layering Xi Jinping’s metaphors and tying informatization directly to modernization:

In today’s world, innovation in information technology changes with every passing day. Whoever occupies the high ground of informatization will be able to seize the first opportunity, win the advantage, win security, and win the future. Without informatization there is no modernization.

当今世界，信息技术创新日新月异，谁在信息化上占据制高点，谁就能够掌握先机、赢得优势、赢得安全、赢得未来。没有信息化就没有现代化。

At a deeper ideological level, in this context “winning the future” points to the central role that Digital China (as the “overall” national strategy for digitalized/informatized reform and development) is expected to play in the Marxist reconstruction of the “forces of production” (combined human productive powers), updating an idea central to historical materialism and tagging a new source for revolutionary change to the current stage of human development. The new Marxist theorem is attributed to Xi Jinping himself. The theorem drives Party policy and it is predictive.

The deeper ideological meaning: winning the future through Marxism

At a deeper ideological level, “winning the future” signals something more: the central role that Digital China, as the Party’s “overall” strategy for digitalized and informatized development, plays in the Marxist reconstruction of the forces of production (productive powers), a core concept in historical materialism.

In contemporary Party theory, the digital age has introduced a new revolutionary driver of productive forces: data. This forms the basis of the Party’s new Marxist theorem, attributed directly to Xi Jinping, that guides policymaking and is treated as predictive.

The “authoritative” Governance Events column in Xinhua’s Outlook Weekly magazine, titled “Digital China Wins the Future,” distilled this thinking clearly:

With the rapid development of new generation information technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence; data has become a fundamental strategic resource and a key revolutionary factor (of production) for the digital age. Whoever can better recognize and seize the general trend of digitalization, and better adapt to and lead the developmental direction of new forces of production, will be able to win the new omnidirectional competition for comprehensive national power.

随着大数据、云计算和人工智能等新一代信息技术的快速发展，数据已成为数字时代的基础性战略资源和革命性关键要素。谁能更好认识和把握数字化大势，更好适应和引领新生产力发展方向，谁就能赢得新的全方位综合国力竞争。

In this framing, Digital China is the mechanism through which China will reshape the forces of production for the digital age and thereby “win the future.”

Winning the future: nationally and globally

Digital China is not a branding exercise. It is a strategic vision for national development and global competition. And it is, unmistakably, about winning: winning the digital age. Others are trying to win too, of course. But Xi Jinping argues that Chinese Style Modernization, built on the digitalized transformation of socialist modernization, give China the advantage. The advantage is gained nationally by improving societal efficiency and social equity through intelligentized governance. The advantage is gained globally by offering what the Party calls a more inclusive, more sustainable alternative to Western capitalist development. Together, these claims form the bedrock of a propaganda narrative now prominent both inside and outside China.

But “winning” is not assured. Success depends on full societal mobilization around the Party’s digital vision. And the Party’s ambitions are worthy of a “great power.” Among them: overcoming what Beijing sees as a hegemonic global institutional system anchored to the industrial age. The digital age has opened the door to revising those institutions, and Digital China seeks to step through first.

Why understanding this matters

Digital China is not simply a slogan. It has been one of the Party’s key strategic initiatives since 2012 and a formal national strategy since 2017. Few initiatives are so closely tied to Xi Jinping personally. The strategy has been under development for nearly a quarter century and under execution for more than a decade.

And yet, the scale, scope, and theoretical depth of Digital China has often gone unnoticed outside China.

We cannot afford to miss it now.

Understanding Digital China, its ambitions, its theoretical foundations, its successes, and its limits is critical. Doing so will help dispel misunderstanding, improve policymaking, and enable a focused, informed, and effective response to one of the defining strategic challenges of our time.