China is now window to future, says French daily

PARIS - With its impressive digital ecosystem that constantly bubbles innovation and its market as a source of inspiration for Western companies, "China is now a window to our future," said French daily Les Echos in an analysis published on Friday.

"The West has long viewed the Chinese digital ecosystem as a copy of Silicon Valley. The European or American media described the giants of the Middle Kingdom as Google or the Chinese Amazon. But things have changed," said the article.

"China has succeeded in forging business models that do not exist elsewhere. It is impossible to find a Western equivalent to the WeChat super-app (1.2 billion users), which is used as much for shopping as for making a medical appointment or obtaining credit," it continued.

The paper cited Gregory Boutte, digital and customer relations director at French luxury group Kering as saying that "the Chinese digital ecosystem is incredibly different and its speed of evolution is impressive."

"As a market, China is a source of inspiration for Western companies," the article said, noting that "China is a global leader in e-commerce, solar, mobile payment, digital currency and facial recognition."

The paper noted that China now suffers a dependence on semiconductors and lags behind in aeronautics, but "Beijing knows its weaknesses and intends to eliminate them."