The above think-piece of 26 June 2017 by Dr Jean Michel Valantin of the Red (Team) Analysis Society shows how China has rapidly transformed itself into a middle kingdom of global cyber connectivity. 

In 2016, the world's internet users reached 3.6 billion. More than 710 million were Chinese, including 656 million mobile users. 250 million of them are already using 5G network. It is expected that the the Chinese Internet market will almost double during the coming decade.

In 2017, for example,WeChat attracted 889 million users per month, with over 100 million users outside China. During the first quarter, Alibaba recorded 545 million active buyers, over 80% more than Amazon's 300 million.

During the “One Belt, One Road” Forum for International Cooperation that took place in Beijing on 14- 15 May 2017, myriads of deals were signed related to the expansion of the Chinese New Silk Road in cyberspace, reinforcing China's centrality in the global flows of trade, money and cyber connectivity.  

According to a technology report of 10 July by Bloomberg, San Francisco-based start-up Stripe Inc. has unveiled a partnership deal with Alipay's and WeChat's vast digital payment services to access hundreds of millions of Chinese customers hungry for more foreign goods and services. So, Jack Ma's earlier pitch to Trump that Alibaba could use its global platform to help small and medium sized American businesses to create a million US jobs is not all hot air. 

Much of China's One Belt, One Road initiative now embraces ecological sustainability. For example, China initiated the “Joint Initiative to Establish the International Coalition for Green Development on the Belt and Road” with the United Nations Environment Program, as well as the Belt and Road Environmental Cooperation plan, while setting up the “Big Data Service Platform on Ecological and Environmental Protection”. See my Op-ed in the South China Morning Post. 

The Red Team Analysis article contends that China's efforts to achieve centrality of global flows with a stake in sustainability reflects as much its Middle Kingdom tradition as its Taoist world vision, in which the Qi, the “matter energy” and the “Li” the principle of universal order, are different, entwined and must be nurtured and kept in harmony.