The news “China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech” by Paul Mozur published on August 2, 2016 in the New York Times talked about China’s leading innovation in the high-tech industry.

      Although the Silicon Valley in America has always been representative of the world’s tech-capital, most the newer innovations are first popularized in China nowadays. For instance, Chinese media reported that the most popular domestic delivery company, S.F. Express in China was experimenting with the idea of using drones to deliver purchases long before the Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos discussed about it. Moreover, WeChat and Alipay, two Chinese apps, have long used the bar-code like symbols, called QR codes, to let people pay for purchases and transfer money before the existence of Snapchat. All of these revolutionary changes can be categorized as “disruptive innovations” and are considered great technological breakthrough.

  Contrary to the concepts being discussed by Joanna Lu in her blog “AliPay, UnionPay, and WeChat Pay vs.Visa and MasterCard: China vs. the World”, which has demonstrated valuable opinion and personal insights about the different payments being used in China, specifically Shanghai, I believe none of the countries around the world would just fully rely on foreign payment methods and China, being one of the countries with leading purchasing power, should definitely have its own method of payment like the UnionPay. President Trudeau’s plan to corporate with Alipay should also be considered as a great strategy to further stimulate Canada’s economic development instead of an irony. Moreover, both Alipay and WeChat pay are payments that can only be done online through internet and should thus be compared with Paypal, which is not even accepted in every store in the United States.

 

       China’s rapid economic growth has been significant to the world in the past few years. Although it is still behind in some important areas, China is now the only country that can be compared to the United States. What differentiates China and the United States the most is the fact that most of China’s population uses their cell phones 24 hours a day, especially after the appearance of WeChat. “The U.S. was first to credit cards, and everyone there has a personal computer. But China, where everyone is on their phones all the time, is now ahead in mobile commerce and mobile payments by virtue of leapfrogging the PC and credit cards,” said Ben Thompson, founder of the tech research firm Stratechery.

Even though China is still behind in some other areas, it is perspicuous that China is starting to influence the world with its modern online payment methods.

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References

(2017). Data.worldbank.org. Retrieved 29 October 2017, from https://data.worldbank.org/

How Is Snapchat QR Code so Different than Others? How Do You Create a Special QR Code Shape? – Quora. (2017). Quora.com. Retrieved 29 October 2017, from https://www.quora.com/How-is-Snapchat-QR-code-so-different-than-others-How-do-you-create-a-special-QR-code-shape

Mozur, P. (2017). China, Not Silicon Valley, Is Cutting Edge in Mobile Tech. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 29 October 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/technology/china-mobile-tech-innovation-silicon-valley.html