午夜剧场

In terms of the utilization of digital technology, overseas countries may be more advanced than Japan. I have felt this way on the streets of India, in restaurants in China, and in factories in Southeast Asia. This book is a sketch of that intuition.

If you go to a bookstore, there are piles of books on the subject of Digital Transformation (DX), which refers to social change through digital technology. However, in most cases, the setting is either Japan or developed countries, led by the United States.

However, in the 2010s, the mobile internet spread to emerging and developing countries as well. New services originating from smartphones and various sensors are changing lives, employment, and even politics in developing countries. If we call developed countries the "North" and developing countries the "South," then we should look precisely at the "South." There, an overwhelming demographic, explosive development of communication environments, and trial and error to solve problems with new technologies are accumulating.

First, digitalization expands the possibilities of emerging countries. This is not limited to China, which produced giant platform companies such as Alibaba and Tencent, but also India, which introduced electronic biometric authentication, and Southeast Asia, where delivery and ride-sharing are spreading... Even in Africa, venture companies are being born, and entrepreneurs returning from studying abroad are looking for opportunities.

Second, digital technology makes the vulnerabilities of emerging countries manifest. The spread of automation technology increases the burden on the labor market, and the development of surveillance technology is being utilized by authoritarian regimes.

In other words, digitalization amplifies not only possibilities but also vulnerabilities in a straightforward manner. To put it simply, digitalization is a double-edged sword. It is difficult to cherry-pick only the good parts.

I wrote down these ideas in a single stroke. Since the author's specialty is the Chinese economy, as expected, there were some difficulties in writing. However, the journey of thinking about the digitalization of emerging countries was a task with a sense of liberation, like drawing on a blank canvas. Even if it is a poor drawing, it is fine as long as the shape and general meaning are conveyed and it serves as a basis for discussion.

Services utilizing the mobile internet have been implemented in developing sites where dust flies. It looks like an unknown scene, but this is the new normal for the future. And due to the pandemic, this trend is being accelerated in a distorted form.

Asei Ito

Chuko Shinsho

256 pages, 820 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.