Bytes into growth

Open cooperation in digital trade has emerged as a new breakthrough for promoting economic integration and shared prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region

In recent years, the deep integration of digital technology and international trade has accelerated the growth of digital trade, which has emerged as a new engine for global trade and economic growth. According to the 2025 Report on the Development of Global Digital Trade, jointly compiled by the United Nations International Trade Center and the organizing committee of the Global Digital Trade Expo, the scale of global digital trade exports increased from $4.59 trillion to $7.23 trillion between 2020 and 2024, with an average annual growth rate of 12.1 percent, surpassing the global trade growth rate of 9.7 percent during the same period. The Asia-Pacific region, with its vast market size, diverse industrial structure and close economic ties, has become a frontier for digital trade innovation.

China's digital trade development has also accelerated in recent years. According to the Ministry of Commerce's report on China's development of digital trade 2025, the country's trade in digitally deliverable services exceeded $406.72 billion, a 5.4 percent increase from the previous year, while cross-border e-commerce trade reached 2.71 trillion yuan ($403 billion), a 14 percent increase, both setting new records. China's digital trade development not only contributes to its own high-quality trade growth but also injects new momentum into the collaborative development and shared prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region through spillover effects.

The Asia-Pacific region has developed a multilayered, broad-coverage and differentiated digital trade cooperation system, combining institutional foundations and market advantages to strengthen the basis for regional digital economic and trade cooperation. Various regional and bilateral trade agreements continue to improve digital economic and trade rules. For instance, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the world's largest free trade agreement by population and economic size, includes a dedicated e-commerce chapter with systematic and flexible arrangements for e-commerce, electronic authentication and online consumer protection, providing institutional guarantees for Asia-Pacific digital trade development.

Additionally, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation mechanism continues to advance regional digital connectivity, while the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement focuses on high-standard digital economic and trade rules, offering important prerequisites for cooperation in the Asia-Pacific digital sector.

The digital economies of Asia-Pacific countries are highly complementary, creating significant opportunities for coordinated development. For example, China has advantages in digital technology, the platform economy and digital industries, while the digital economies of the ASEAN members are rapidly emerging, with market demand continuously expanding. This creates broad space for industrial division of labor in digital products, services and technologies within the region. However, it is important to note that the digital economic development in the Asia-Pacific region remains uneven, with some economies lagging behind in digital infrastructure and digital transformation capabilities, widening the digital divide. Fragmented rules and inconsistent standards also hinder regional digital trade integration, necessitating a consensus on cooperation to address development challenges collectively.

China can share the benefits of its consumption upgrade by opening its vast market. As the world's largest online retail market for 13 consecutive years, China's online retail sales reached 15.97 trillion yuan in 2025. Through mature cross-border e-commerce platforms and digital services trade systems, goods, professional services and high-quality digital content from other Asia-Pacific economies can enter the Chinese market at lower cost and with high efficiency, sharing the benefits of China's market openness.

China has enhanced regional supply chain resilience through industrial chain cooperation. The widespread application of digital technology significantly reduces the organization and coordination costs of regional industrial chains, fostering new digital trade formats and industry chain divisions. In 2025, China's offshore service outsourcing execution volume with other RCEP member countries reached 321.1 billion yuan, accounting for 27.5 percent of the national total. Chinese digital platforms leverage their resource integration advantages to link numerous small- and medium-sized enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region, promoting deep integration and coordinated linkage of the digital industrial chain, effectively enhancing the stability and competitiveness of regional industry chains.

China can help narrow the regional digital development gap through inclusive growth. Digital trade significantly lowers the barriers to international trade participation, enabling more developing economies and small and micro enterprises to engage in international trade and integrate into global value chains through China's digital trade platforms. This inclusiveness helps address regional development imbalances and promotes inclusive and sustainable development.

China facilitated regional trade connectivity through digital infrastructure. Leveraging the Digital Silk Road, China continues to promote open cooperation in digital infrastructure and technology services, aiming to unblock bottlenecks in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also promoting mutual recognition of cross-border electronic signatures and the establishment of cross-border settlement service platforms, strengthening the foundation for Asia-Pacific digital trade connectivity.

Looking ahead, the potential of China's digital trade development will be increasingly unleashed. The key lies in how to better leverage this positive factor to foster shared prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

First, openness in the digital sector needs to be deepened and the institutional foundation for regional cooperation strengthened. By actively aligning with international high-standard digital economic and trade rules and deepening openness in the digital sector, the momentum for China's digital trade innovation and development will be more robust, and its contribution to regional shared prosperity will be greater. It is essential that China fully utilizes the open platform roles of free trade pilot zones, national digital service export bases and national digital trade demonstration zones to explore new models of digital trade development and promote stable development of Asia-Pacific digital trade cooperation.

Second, joint construction of digital infrastructure should be promoted to narrow the regional digital divide. China and other Asia-Pacific countries should actively explore new cooperation models in areas such as 5G base stations, big data centers and smart ports. The focus should be on carrying out digital technology training, talent exchanges and technology transfer assistance to build an inclusive, interconnected regional digital infrastructure system. This will help address the digital shortcomings of less developed countries.

Third, the areas of digital cooperation should be expanded to unlock shared development dividends. China and other Asia-Pacific countries should actively expand their cooperation in offshore service outsourcing, digital content trade, telemedicine, online education and other fields. China should promote the improvement of supporting service systems such as cross-border logistics, overseas warehouses and cross-border payments, helping small and micro enterprises and more people in this region benefit from regional digital trade.

Fourth, it is crucial for China to use multilateral regional cooperation platforms such as RCEP and APEC to actively promote dialogue and consultation on digital-trade rules among Asia-Pacific economies, build regional consensus and continuously reduce barriers in order to promote a more open, inclusive, balanced and win-win Asia-Pacific digital trade governance system.

The author is a researcher at the Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.