CHINA’S DIGITAL VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT: REALITIES, PATHWAYS, AND MECHANISMS

Digital technology is an indispensable productive force for rural development. Building digital villages requires transforming the inherent advantages of digital technology into effective mediators for rural modernization, driving comprehensive innovation in rural production and lifestyles. However, China faces practical challenges in leveraging digital technology for rural modernization: insufficient momentum in "new infrastructure" development, a lack of key actors, inadequate government oversight, digital capability gaps within grassroots organizations, and spatial digital divides. Addressing these requires strengthening physical infrastructure, cultivating digital literacy among stakeholders, optimizing policy design, integrating autonomy, rule of law, and virtue-based governance, and bridging spatial disparities. The Chinese government has established a systematic action mechanism for digital village development: (1) Foundation-building mechanism: Consolidating physical infrastructure; (2) Co-creation mechanism: Integrating external forces to ensure stakeholder engagement; (3) Capacity-enhancement mechanism: Addressing capability gaps through digital education; (4) Collaborative mechanism: Restructuring organizations to synergize multi-stakeholder efforts.