Ashley Galina Dudarenok

The View | As Facebook looks to WeChat, China’s digital world is wowing the West, and globalisation is no longer a one-way street

With even Silicon Valley giants like Facebook learning from the hyperconnected WeChat universe, the investment in data and AI by the Chinese state and companies is paying off

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

China’s digital universe quickly expanded from 2013 onwards. Mobile payments boomed and start-ups sprang up, making e-commerce and on-demand services available with the click of a few buttons. Linking it all together was the super app WeChat. Photo: Bloomberg

Ashley Galina Dudarenok

Published: 8:30pm, 1 Apr 2019Updated: 10:18pm, 1 Apr 2019

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent article about Facebook’s future has attracted wide attention. It’s believed that his plan for Facebook as a “privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform” is inspired by WeChat and that the goal is for Facebook to become a similar super app. The fact that he also commented on a re-posting of an 2015 article, suggesting that he should have learned from WeChat earlier, has furthered this theory.

This is not only a new direction for an internet giant that influences social media and the wider culture, it’s the first time that a Silicon Valley tech tycoon is indicating that a Chinese digital ecosystem is worth learning from and emulating.

But it’s not the first time Facebook is emulating WeChat. In 2016, Facebook launched “Instant Games” within Messenger. Games had been on WeChat for some time before that and Tencent, WeChat’s parent, is one of the biggest gaming companies in the world, despite recent setbacks.

There are key moments when an invention or product revolutionises society: the telephone; the automobile; television; the aeroplane; personal computers; smartphones.

Now, it’s the digital ecosystem. Facebook is one such ecosystem – a platform with multiple functions that people return to use again and again. For some, it functions as a mini-internet, to such a degree that they don’t realise that Facebook operates through the internet. People can send private messages to friends, post photos that anyone who has a Facebook account can see, find out about local events, promote their business and more without leaving the site.

Facebook also has live streaming, Facebook Watch for TV series and Facebook Marketplace for buying and selling. It owns WhatsApp and Instagram, so those are also part of its ecosystem, and it has emulated popular functions from Snapchat and others.

Facebook is the dominant digital ecosystem in the West. WeChat is the dominant digital ecosystem in China.

From 2013 onwards, China’s digital universe ramped up. Mobile payments boomed and start-ups sprang up bringing convenient e-commerce, mobile payment systems that worked just as swiftly online and off, and on-demand services available with the click of a few buttons. Linking it all together was the super app WeChat, with its estimated 1 billion-plus active accounts.