Transformation of China’s business model in the new economic reality

The study examines how China’s business model has transformed from an export- and labour-intensive system into a multilevel model combining state coordination, corporate digitalisation, domestic-market development, and selective participation in global networks. Historical-economic and comparative analysis, macroeconomic indicators, policy documents, and illustrative cases of Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei are used to identify the mechanisms of this transformation. The findings show that public policy defines strategic incentives and constraints at the macro level; digital infrastructure, platform ecosystems, and sectoral institutions transmit these influences at the meso level; and firms respond at the micro level through platform integration, data governance, research and development, and supply-chain localisation. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, big data, and 5G enable these responses, while trade barriers, supply-chain disruptions, demographic ageing, environmental commitments, and weak domestic demand constrain them. The study concludes that China’s current business model is a hybrid system shaped by interactions across these levels, and that its future trajectory is most consistent with a managed combination of technological autonomy, domestic-market resilience, financial sovereignty, and selective global engagement.