By Xu Hongda

It has been a few years since I've moved abroad for work, and every time I went back to China, either for business or holiday, I was amazed at how technology is radically changing the everyday life of the Chinese people.

"The street vendor just asked me to pay through wechat!" (wechat is a popular social networking app in China that integrates mobile payment function.) As I told this with much excitement to my mother, who is in her sixties, I was met with unexpected calm, "That's not news. You are so out. Maybe you should come back more often." Several years ago, I would never have imagined a conversation like that between a mother and a son, at least it should be the other way around. "Life has become so easy. I can do everything on the phone now", she added. Then I remembered how frustrated I was watching my parents glued to their phones when I tried to make a conversation. Yes, time has changed.

The fact is, tech-savvy seniors like my mother is no longer a minority, but the mainstream, in today's Chinese society. New technology is no longer the privilege of the younger generation, and has become user-friendly to all. Shopping, banking, pay utilities, book a restaurant, rent a car, see a doctor, you can do all of them online or on-the-go. The unprecedented scale of technology penetration across China has changed the life of everyone.

Mobile Payment

"In China, when I go out, I don't need to bring a wallet. I just need a phone to buy the things I want and pay for the food I love", said Lin, a student from Cambodia doing studies in Beijing. When asked about the things that she wants to bring back home the most, she picked mobile payment. Today in China, the businesses and shops that welcome mobile payments are everywhere, metro, taxi, cafe, supermarket, etc., and many would offer a decent discount to encourage the use of the service. By the end of July this year, both the number of active mobile payment accounts and the number of daily transactions in China exceeded 600 million.

A survey by Financial Times last year showed: 98.3% of the Chinese surveyed used mobile payment in the past 3 months, far outweighing other payment forms-credit card (45.5%), debit card (30%), cash (79%). According to the Smart Life Index Report jointly conducted by the internet company Tencent and the Renmin University of China, 84% of being surveyed said "going out with only a phone and no cash is convenient and definitely anxiety-free". As the world's first country to adopt paper currency, China is now moving rapidly towards a cashless society.

Internet Shopping

With the advent of the cyber era, the 700 million population of Chinese netizens are bringing to online shopping platforms business opportunities on a scale previously unimaginable. A broadband and a few clicks, you can be sorted for all your daily needs. Some people say, there is nothing you couldn't get online, there is only things you didn't know. There is certain truth to that.

As a marketing strategy to encourage people to spend more online, Chinese online platforms have in recent years come up with many online shopping "carnivals"-"Double 11" (11 Nov), "Double 12" (12 Dec), "6.18" (18 June), Chinese Spring Festival, Labour Day (1 May), the list goes on.

The most interesting one among those is the "Double 11", which is a complete result of marketing exercise by online shopping companies. The idea began as 11 November (11.11) being regarded as a Single's Day in China. In 2009, Taobao, China's largest online retailer took the idea and encouraged people who are still singles to give themselves a treat, to buy gifts for themselves. Deep discounts are offered, and everyone jumped on board, definitely not just the singles.

Today, "Double 11" has become the world's largest shopping carnival in transaction volume. Last year, transaction on Taobao.com in the 24 hour window reached 200 billion rand. Transactions took place in 235 countries and regions worldwide. 81.87% of the transactions were done through mobile device. In the first minutes, every one second recorded 170,000 transactions. And all of these are figures for just one website.

In 2016, online retailing market in China registered 10.5 trillion rand, accounting for 39.2% of the global total. China has for many years remained the world's largest online retailing market.

High Speed Rail

In August 2008, China began to run its first high-speed rail, which allows trains to travel at a maximum speed of 350 km/h. It quickly became the most popular means of transport because of its comfort, convenience, and affordability. People don't even have to print out a ticket to board-an ID is suffice, and tickets can be changed or refunded anytime on a phone app. Many foreign students in China take high-speed trains to travel around during holiday and school vocation. Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson after taking the train ride in China in 2013 wrote on The Telegraph, "it went faster than the fastest Maserati ever made, and it emitted no more noise or vibration than a purring cat".

By the end of last year, a total of 2,595 high-speed trains, or over 60% of world's total, have been running on the high-speed rail network across China, which has a total mileage of over 20,000 km and is still growing, expecting to reach over 45,000 km by 2030, farther than the distance around the Earth at the Equator. In 2016, passenger volume totaled 1,443 million, equivalent to the combined population of Africa and South America.

Bike Sharing

Over the past two years, bikes of different vibrant colors started to appear on the streets across China. They are called shared bikes. With an easy phone scan and a 200 rand deposit, which can be refunded instantly, one can ride the bike to anywhere one likes. Each ride normally cost less than 2 rand. With plenty of bikes parked at metro exits and bus stops, bike sharing provides an ideal solution to the "last mile" of urban public transport. Walking for 10 minutes to a nearing bus or metro station is a thing of the past. More and more people are willing to take public transport. Bikes, which just gave way to private cars a few years ago have now made a strong comeback. As bike companies start to making new fortunes, urban transport was made greener.

The shared bike is not just another bike. Behind them are cutting edge technologies of GPS, mobile payment, big data, and cloud computing. Chinese entrepreneurs combined these technologies and invented a new business model. Founded in January 2015 in Beijing, Mobike today has over 100 million users, runs over 5 million bikes, and handles over 25 million daily rides globally. Again, this is the story of just one bike sharing company amongst many.

Earlier this year, ofo and Mobike began to take their business abroad. At present, ofo has grown its registered users to 100,000, and handles 20,000 daily rides in Singapore alone. Chinese shared bikes have also made their ways into Cambridge, the "bike capital" of Britain. Financial Times wrote of the fast growing bike sharing as just another example of Chinese companies leading the world's business innovation.

From sharing a bike and a car ride to sharing knowledge, labour and skills, the idea of "sharing economy" originated in the United States in the 1970s is now taking roots and prospering across China. In 2016, China's total sharing economy grew by 103% from the previous year to 7 trillion rand. It is estimated that over the next few years, the Chinese sharing economy will continue to grow at 40% annually.

Facial Recognition

The more popular way of saying facial recognition in Chinese is "shua lian", which literally translates as "swiping face" as opposed to swiping a card or ID on a machine. It is an entertaining way of saying someone is so well-known that his or her face alone is a card for access, but no longer-technology advancement has made "shua lian" a serious reality.

As early as last year, the Beijing Railway Station introduced self-service terminals that board passengers by a simple face scan. This June, China Southern Airlines began to commercially test smart facial recognition boarding gates at Nanyang Airport in Henan Province. Passengers are let through the gates by a face scan-no more boarding pass and ID checks.

Last month, the large retailing company Suning opened its first "unmanned shop" in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Customers enter the shop by linking their face profile with their mobile payment account on the entrance terminal. When they finish shopping, all they need is to walk through the payment channel and their accounts will settled automatically.

Medical Care

The futuristic surgery pods that appeared in sci-fi movies like Prometheus and Elysium may very soon become a reality. In Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, dozens of community hospitals began to use a multi-functional medical examination bed designed by a local healthcare technology firm. A patient just needs to lie on the bed for 20 minutes to get a full report on type-B ultrasonic checks, electrocardiogram, blood pressure, and other health data. This equipment significantly reduced the time of routine health checks and at the same time cut the patient's cost by 80%. This medical examination bed has over ten patent technologies.

In recent years, the number of Chinese patent applications has been on a steady increase and now ranks the 4th place in the world. What's more important is that numerous innovative Chinese companies are translating these cutting edge patent technologies into marketable products at an impressive speed. In 2016, technological progress contributed 56.2% to China's economic growth, making innovation an increasingly important driving force for the Chinese economy.

"What do you want to bring home the most from China?"

When China hosted the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May this year, a survey on that question was conducted among youth from 20 different countries living in China. High speed rail, internet shopping, mobile payment, and bike sharing came top four on the chart. They were nicknamed as the "four new great inventions".

Papermaking, printing, gunpowder and the compass-these four great inventions of ancient China used to change the world in the past. Today, the "four new great inventions" are again reshaping the people's life in China and across the world, bringing to the world Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to development challenges and pursuits.

Not long ago, I watched a street interview video on a Chinese social media website. The host was asking people from other countries what is the question they want to ask China the most. "What is your secret? When I was a kid, China was so weak and poor, and almost all of a sudden, you are now a completely different country. How did this happen?" This question left me pondering. I think the answer to this question needs to be put into the perspective of China's overall development environment. It is a truly blessed environment: first-class telecommunication and transportation infrastructure, armies of young scientists and technology experts, favorable government industrial policies that encourage innovation and allow trial and error, and most importantly, the strength we have gathered and the open mindset we have embraced from years of reform and opening up. Yet for me, these are not really the "secrets" of China, but the gift that we have always wanted to share with the rest of the world.