Supported by the much faster mobile network, the museum will likely be digitalized to such an extent that visitors thousands of miles away may be able to explore it in virtual reality. And those visiting it in person will be able to learn about the treasures it houses in greater detail with the aid of digital technology.

In the past 20 years since the museum started to facilitate its work with digital technology, a lot of information about the cultural relics it preserves has been provided on its app, and multiple digitalized ways have been employed for visitors to have a more rewarding experience.

The cooperation between the museum and Huawei will now take that to an even higher level, as the new generation of telecoms technology will enrich the experience of visitors to the museum, virtually and in reality, even further. And if conditions become mature in the near future, it will not just be visits to the Palace Museum that 5G transforms.

With 5G networks and a smartphone, one will be able to have a consultation with a doctor without leaving home or give instructions to robotic cleaners to do household chores.

In fact, what the new 5G networks represent is none other than the next technological revolution. There is no reason to politicize the arrival of this next-generation technology. Neither is there any reason to demonize what Huawei, as one of the world biggest telecoms equipment providers, is doing to usher in this technological revolution.

What is even more dangerous than the harm done to fair competition in the world market is the negative impact the political barriers some Western countries have put in the way of Huawei will have on the evolution of technology.

Huawei, which is a private company that has no affiliations to the government, can provide the most advanced technologies and equipment for 5G mobile networks. Those trying to block it on national security grounds are simply not keeping up with the times.

No country has provided any solid evidence to support the accusations that the Chinese telecoms giant presents a threat.

What they’ve done to Huawei will, as technology progresses, be shown to be nothing more than a political farce.

The report, released recently by the Sharing Economy Research Center under the State Information Center, showed that in 2018, the transaction volume of China’s sharing economy market reached 2.94 trillion yuan ($439.8 billion), up 41.6 percent on an annualized basis. There were 5.98 million employees registered on sharing economy platforms, up 7.5 percent year-on-year. A total of 760 million people participated in the sector, of which 75 million were service providers, up 7.1 percent from the previous year.

“China’s sharing economy market and the employment in the sector witnessed rapid growth despite rising macroeconomic downward pressure,” said Yu Fengxia, deputy director of the Sharing Economy Research Center.

Investment into the country’s sharing economy sector dropped 23.2 percent year-on-year to 149 billion yuan, mostly due to the rational investment patterns of investors amid fierce competition in ride-sharing sector.

The report also showed that unicorn companies in the sharing economy sector were expanding rapidly. By the end of 2018, there were 83 unicorn enterprises in China, among which 41 percent, or 34 enterprises, were in the sharing economy sector. In 2018, 11 sharing economy companies turned into unicorns.

In addition, as pointed out by the report, the sharing economy is being seen as the new momentum for the transformation of the service industry. By introducing sharing economy, the structure of the service industry is constantly being optimized, and its scale is expanding more rapidly. From 2015 to 2018, the sharing economy contributed 1.6 percent, 2.1 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively, to the growth of the travel, accommodation and catering industries.

The penetration rate of shared services also increased. By June 2018, there were 570 million consumers making online payments, 260 million more than the level of 2015, and the annual growth rate reached 16.9 percent. The penetration of shared service among netizens increased from 46.9 percent in 2015 to 71 percent in 2018, statistics from China Internet Network Information Center showed.

“We are living in a society which constantly pursues efficiency improvement. Resources that are not fully utilized give birth to sharing economy. I am confident that as the sharing economy penetrates into more and more industries, it will create great value to our society,” said Li Xiao, founding partner of Joy Capital.

Apart from its role in the service industry, the sharing economy contributes to employment and consumption. “Food delivery services, as part of the sharing economy sector, boosted employment in the country. Take Meituan Waimai as an example, a total of 2.7 million employers earned money from the platform in 2018, 22.7 percent higher than the previous year. There are over 600,000 active delivery drivers every day,” said Zhao Dawei, director of the research center under online food review and delivery company Meituan-Dianping.

“It is estimated that in the future, the sharing economy will continue to stabilize and promote employment. As flexible workers, more and more people are able to participate in sharing economy activities, according to their interest, technique, time and resources.

“Also, the sharing economy’s potential of stimulating consumption will be released, as it can not only satisfy consumers’ needs limited by the traditional service mode, but also boost their new consumption needs. As people’s consumption concepts change, shared services will penetrate into people’s major fields of life, and serve as the main driving force to fuel consumption,” Yu said.

Promising as the future is, many problems still remain. For example, the supervision mechanism needs to be updated, the government and enterprises should increase the level of data sharing, and enterprises in the sharing economy sector should better fulfill their corporate social responsibility, to promote the sustainable and inclusive development of society.

Wang Qing, deputy director of the Institute of Market Economy under the Development Research Center of the State Council, noted that “to develop the sharing economy, the basic system of the internet-based economy should be improved, such as establishing rules to protect consumers, to ensure fair competition and to promote cross-border integration. In addition, we need to solve the contradiction between traditional regulatory methods and innovative development requirements, and introduce new supervision mechanism.”

“Besides, it is crucial to strengthen theoretical research and rationally draw on international experience,” he added.

A new round of technological competition in maglev trains is going on globally, and a number of countries are speeding up the development of maglev train technologies, said Wu Guanghui, a deputy to the National People’s Congress and vice-president of State-owned and Shanghai-based aerospace manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the national legislature in Beijing.

Japan is constructing a maglev train line between Tokyo and Nagoya, which is scheduled to become operational in 2021 and the journey will take only 40 minutes, said Wu, who is also an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE).

“Many foreign technology suppliers are focusing on maglev trains and some are trying to offer new maglev plans for Shanghai,” he said.

Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk has shown great interest in providing a plan for an underground maglev route in Shanghai when the company signed a cooperation memorandum on the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory with the Shanghai government last year, Wu said.

“He claimed that the technology is being experimented in Los Angeles and Seattle,” Wu said

Shanghai has been operating a maglev train line based on Sino-German technical cooperation between a metro station in Pudong new area and Pudong International Airport since 2006. The 30-km journey takes roughly eight minutes with the train running at a maximum speed of 430 km an hour.

Wu suggested a maglev route from downtown area of one city in the Yangtze River Delta region to that of another, for example, from downtown Shanghai to downtown Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province.

“Shanghai-based Tongji University has mastered the technology to design maglev trains that can run at the maximum speed of 550 km an hour,” Wu said.

“This means that a maglev ride will only take half an hour to run from downtown Shanghai to downtown Hangzhou, which will significantly promote the national strategy of the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region,” he said.

Shanghai can also consider an underground maglev line from the downtown area to Pudong’s Lingang area, the city’s smart manufacturing base, to accelerate the development of the area, Wu suggested.

A report on the website of the CAE showed that a meeting attended by 90 domestic experts to launch a research project on a new generation of maglev technology was held in Beijing in December.

CAE Vice-President He Huawu said that the project would organize advantageous resources in the country to carry out strategic, comprehensive and forward-looking research on a transportation model combining maglev technology and a low-pressure vacuum environment.

A hit on e-commerce platforms, the small bento-box dish, which costs no more than 50 yuan (7.4 US dollars), became extremely popular among young Chinese white-collar workers.

The small bento-box instant hotpot is composed of an inner layer holding half-cooked vegetables and meat and an outer layer with heating materials at the bottom, which can release heat after combining with cold water. A mini hotpot can be prepared within 10 minutes.

A total of 4.53 million packages were sold during last year’s Single’s Day online shopping carnival, nearly triple compared with the same period in 2017. Some even sold out at local convenience stores.

However, the instant hotpot products might be delicious and convenient, but they been proven unsafe.

A recent test on 20 different such products revealed that inflammable gas can be released during the heating process and the plastic outer or inner layers can distorted because of the heat.

Shanghai Consumer Council, the test conductor, called for the setting of national and industry standards, suggesting careful use of the hotpot in open areas and sorted disposal of the self-heating materials.

Just like the instant hotpot, online best-selling products often go viral on social networks by precisely satisfying the needs of young customers, said Lao Guoling, head of the research center for e-commerce with Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

According to the China Consumers Association, most customer concerns last year were internet-related, including the quality of online goods, safety of online ride-hailing, mobile payment and personal information protection.

Chinese online shoppers and regulatory authorities are facing bigger challenges as the virtual marketplace booms with popular products emerging one after another, said Lao, noting that such products and services might not be covered by existing industry standard constraints.

China’s first e-commerce law took effect on Jan. 1. It bans vendors from unscrupulous practices like deleting shopper reviews, and cancelling orders.

Wang Yunxia, instructor of Zhejiang Gongshang University, said the law could help promote the healthy development of e-commerce and better protect the rights of online consumers.

Starting in 1999, China’s e-commerce market has been expanding at break-neck pace, with emerging players, even individuals, joining industry giants like Alibaba and JD in mining the country’s consumption potential.

E-commerce platforms has also played their part in protecting consumer rights.

In 2018, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba applied new technologies such as semantic and emotional analysis of online comments, panoramic view of online stores and live streaming monitoring system to discover problematic products and sellers.

Alibaba’s online shopping platform Tmall rolled out a slew of return and refund policies concerning trending products. For example, consumers are entitled to claim refunds for cosmetics and diapers that cause allergic reactions, and alcohol that is damaged during transportation.

Alibaba said it aided police in catching 1,953 suspects involved in counterfeiting related crimes in 2018. The cases solved were worth about 7.9 billion yuan (1.17 billion US dollars).

China’s authorities also have improved their measures of consumer protection online. The “12315” online consumer protecting platforms now can be reached for help through personal computers and several mobile applications or mini-applications 24 hours a day.

Statistics show that these online platforms were visited nearly 39 million times in 2018.

Wang Qian said she would still buy instant hotpot, but be more cautious and pay more attention to information released by local authorities on online products.

The partnership enables potentially 110,000 British retailers to tap into the growing volume and buying power of Chinese visitors, who represent an increasingly important source of customers, the pair said in a joint statement on Thursday.

Merchants don’t need to replace their existing point-of-sale system to include Alipay as a payment method. They are also likely to benefit from the more than 600 million Chinese Alipay users who search for store openings and check out discounts using the app.

“Our new agreement with Alipay gives retailers a vital tool to help them seize the revenue opportunity posed by the growth of Chinese visitors to the UK,” said Rob Cameron, chief executive officer and global head of payment acceptance at Barclaycard.

“At the same time, Alipay users will benefit from a more convenient and familiar in-store payments process－enhancing their overall shopping experience.”

VisitBritain, UK’s national tourism agency, is expecting 483,000 visits from China in 2019, up 43 percent on 2017, with Chinese visitors expected to spend more than£1 billion ($1.33 billion) this year, up 50 percent.

And this is on top of UK’s 393,000 Chinese residents and 95,000 Chinese students, according to statistics from the UK Council for International Student Affairs, who constitute a sizable population that are already comfortable with the payment app.

This marks another step toward offering Chinese tourists a seamless travel and payment experience, said Roland Palmer, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa at Alipay.

Barclaycard, the global payment arm of Barclays Bank Plc, processes nearly half of the UK’s credit and debit card transactions. The current collaboration is based on a pilot program that the pair kicked off two years ago for early adopters to experience Alipay payment.

According to a survey conducted by Nielsen last year, 93 percent of Chinese tourists said they would likely spend more in a store that accepted mobile payments. In addition, among the merchants surveyed that had adopted Alipay, nearly 60 percent said that they had clearly seen growth in both foot traffic and revenue.

“China has embraced mobile payments faster than any other country and will continue to lead the global charge in this regard,” said Vishal Bali, managing director of Nielsen China.

“Mobile payment is on the rise globally, and will continue to support greater connectivity and efficiency across the commercial ecosystem.”

Alipay has partnered with 250 financial institutions globally to date. Since 2015 it has formed nine strategic partnerships with local partners outside the Chinese mainland, extending its own technologies and experience to incubate local payment solutions and allow for settlement using local currencies.