Influence of knowledge economy on production and thinking
Professionals compete in the 3rd National Contest of Industrial Robot Technology Application. Photo: XINHUA
“It was eye-opening to watch the annual New Year’s Eve speech with its theme ‘Friend of Time’ and get to know the world,” a chief operating officer of an internet human resources company said, commenting on the annual speech given by Luo Zhenyu, the founder of the immensely popular personal media and knowledge sharing show Logical Thinking.
One day before Luo’s Speech, financial writer Wu Xiaobo spoke on the theme of “foreseeing 2020.”
“Currently, the act of paying for knowledge has become a fashion affecting the lifestyles of many people,” said Liu Lina, a senior reporter for Xinhua News Agency, who flew from Beijing to Xiamen, Fujian Province, to witness this feast of knowledge.
Liu attributed the popularity of paying for knowledge to the times. “It is in line with the changes in how knowledge has been disseminated under the influence of new media technologies. It also fits Chinese people’s desire to update their knowledge decades since the reform and opening up. It conforms to the rise of the middle-income group,” Liu said.
The pay-for-knowledge model and its content have expanded to more diverse forms of products, including paid reading, WeChat public account rewards and virtual gifts on live-streaming apps. The sector chain has been optimized. Apart from its rapid development, however, the pay-for-knowledge sector is running into challenges.
“The combination of rational competition and modest regulation will help the sector shoulder corresponding social responsibilities amid rapid growth,” Liu said.
“For a largish number of knowledge products, content is at the core, as consumers are becoming more rational. Apart from the popular knowledge that people read to fill their fragmented time, in-depth content will serve a new trend,” said Zhang Yi, founder and CEO of iiMedia Research Institute, a mobile internet consulting firm based in Guangdong Province. The pay-for-knowledge model is reaching beyond finance, the workplace, health, reading and skills to more sophisticated and diverse fields. Also, there is stronger demand for professionalization. The key to the development of the knowledge sector is how to keep producing excellent content that satisfies users.
Chen Duan, executive director of the China Economic Digital Research Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics, has paid close attention to the changes in production methods brought about by the era of the knowledge economy.
At present, China’s economy has transformed from high-speed growth to medium-speed growth, whose driving forces have shifted from investment and other factors of production to innovation. In this context, knowledge has become a core factor to boosting economic development. Meanwhile, knowledge innovation can effectively promote the optimal allocation of other resources and improve the total factor productivity of the entire society.
“The concept of a knowledge economy was first proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1996. Unlike traditional economic models that focus on the development and utilization of scarce natural resources, the efficiency and effectiveness of social output are increasingly dependent on the effective production, dissemination, innovation and application of knowledge. Applied knowledge and technology have become major sources of social wealth and national competitiveness,” Chen said.
Chen pointed out that a new system of productive forces centered on science and technology will inevitably reshape production relations. Many companies that rely on knowledge, information and online platforms have mushroomed as they are driven by entrepreneurship and innovation. Also, venture capital and the leapfrog growth in the capital market support these companies. The distribution system of social wealth is incrementally favoring those with professional knowledge and technology.
Under the traditional economic model, the development ceiling derives from scarce resources, so social and business competition often falls into a zero-sum game in which “what you gain is what I have lost.” In the knowledge economy, the sharing of knowledge and information promotes the co-creation and sharing of social wealth, such that collaboration and synergy become more important. “This situation requires us to adjust our ways of thinking, broaden our horizons, set goals and consider issues based on dynamic development and win-win cooperation.
The development of agricultural civilization relied on land. Progress in industrial civilization depended on energy and raw materials. Steps to the knowledge economy are made by intellectual achievements and intellectual property rights. Recently, Lyu Wei, a research fellow from the Institute of Innovation and Development at the Development Research Center of the State Council, and He Lianhong, executive deputy dean of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Central South University, have been studying the Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intellectual Property jointly released by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council.
Experts held that in the era of the knowledge economy, intellectual property protection must be cemented. Lyu said that China used to lag behind in terms of innovation capability. Under the new situation, the country is pioneering in some fields while keeping pace in others. In a few fields, the country is still catching up.
“We must realize that in practice, intellectual property rights still face problems such as weak protection awareness and poor legal enforcement. Cases of intellectual property rights infringement are still prone to occur. It remains difficult for intellectual property owners to safeguard their rights because of the difficulties in evidence adduction, long cycles, high costs and small compensations. The application of new technologies, such as the internet and artificial intelligence, has resulted in new challenges for the governance of intellectual property infringement,” He said.
In the future, various social forces such as industry associations, chambers of commerce and volunteers should be motivated to participate in the governance, thus forming a comprehensive network targeting intellectual property rights protection in which multiple modes of protection take effect and develop collaboratively.
This article was translated from Guangming Daily.
edited by MA YUHONG
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