The reform of economic and administrative management systems, centered on optimizing the business environment, stands as one of the most significant policy initiatives undertaken by the Chinese government. It has ushered in a “quiet revolution” that reshapes the relationship between the government and enterprises, thereby igniting market vitality. Based on a corpus of approximately 120,000 Chinese business environment policy documents from 2012 to 2023, we employ large language models to conduct a textual analysis and reveal multi-dimensional characteristics of these policies. The findings indicate that the distribution of Chinese business environment policies exhibits a peak-like pattern, increasing first and stabilizing later, with regional variation, the issuing bodies demonstrate inter-agency collaboration and hierarchical differentiation, while policy objectives focus on inward-oriented reforms not aligned with World Bank standards, and the policy diffusion follows a vertically led, horizontally coordinated model. Econometric analysis shows that the number of business environment policies is significantly positively correlated with the quality of the business environment. This study comprehensively sorts out the content and characteristics of China’s business environment policies for the first time, clearly depicts the macro picture and internal operating logic of this “quiet revolution”, and provides a solid micro-foundation and empirical support for understanding the improvement of China’s business environment since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

China’s innovation development faces a structural contradiction of quantity improvement lagging behind quantity improvement, which restricts the deepening of the innovation-driven development strategy and high-quality economic development. Optimizing the business environment is a key entry point to address this contradiction. Using panel data of 275 cities in China from 2010 to 2023, this paper constructs urban business environment and innovation quality indices, and employs the spatial durbin model (SDM) to empirically examine the effect of the business environment on innovation quality. The findings are as follows: First, optimizing the urban business environment not only significantly improves local innovation quality but also exerts a prominent driving effect on that of neighboring cities. Second, from a regional perspective, the direct and spillover effects of the business environment on innovation quality are significant in eastern and central China; the business environment in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Yangtze River Economic Belt, and Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration has a significant direct impact on innovation quality. Third, the market environment, innovation environment, and financial services can significantly drive the improvement of regional innovation quality, while a single factor is insufficient to play an effective role. Based on these results, we should construct differentiated business environment evaluation systems tailored to local conditions, establish regional collaborative innovation mechanisms, strengthen the support of market, innovation, and financial environments, and deepen the “streamlining administration, delegating powers, improving regulation, and optimizing services” reform. Through high-quality business environment construction, we aim to resolve the problem of “imbalance between quantity and quality” in innovation.

Based on the analytical framework of general value theory, this paper deeply explores the role of data elements as a new type of production factor in promoting the development of new quality productive forces. The study systematically analyzes the functions of data elements across the three dimensions of value creation, value distribution, and value sharing. It elucidates their positive impacts on improving resource allocation efficiency, reducing operational costs, and stimulating collaborative innovation. The research indicates that through linkage mechanisms involving value creation, distribution, and sharing, data elements are profoundly reshaping traditional production modes and economic structures, thereby providing robust support for the cultivation and growth of new quality productive forces. Furthermore, the paper identifies current challenges facing the development of data elements, including imperfect regulatory systems, the contradiction between data privacy protection and sharing, and non-standardized pricing and standards. Accordingly, it proposes countermeasures such as improving the data regulatory framework, accelerating data sharing, and breaking down data silos. These suggestions aim to provide decision-making references for policymakers and enterprises to promote the sustained and healthy development of new quality productive forces.

As the core force of the new round of technological revolution, artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly reshaping the development logic and operating mechanisms of regional digital economies. However, the academic community currently lacks a systematic analytical framework to reveal how AI drives high-quality digital economy development through the coordinated efforts of resource allocation, institutional supply, and regional interactions, as well as how it effectively integrates with the inherent logic of regional digital economy development.  To address this, anchored in the era in which AI drives regional digital-economy development, this paper examines multiple dimensions—including technological evolution, institutional change, and the transformation of development patterns—to systematically reveal the core logic through which AI empowers regional digital economies: a dual engine of technology and industry, the co-evolution of factors and institutions, the interactive linkage between regional and global dynamics, and the multidimensional integration of complex systems. On this basis, the study extracts five new attributes of regional digital economies: intelligence-nativization, data-factorization, platform systematization, industrial convergence, and governance foresight. It further constructs driving mechanisms encompassing intelligent innovation, data value addition, industrial structural upgrading, and enhanced governance effectiveness. The findings indicate that artificial intelligence not only promotes qualitative transformation, efficiency improvements, and the reshaping of growth drivers in regional digital economies, but also provides crucial momentum and comparative advantages for achieving coordinated regional development and establishing new forms of global competitiveness.

 Promoting the development of new quality productive forces in manufacturing enterprises is a key strategic initiative for China to accelerate its efforts to make China strong in manufacturing. This paper uses the “Broadband China” pilot project as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the impact and mechanism of urban digital infrastructure construction on the development of new quality productive forces in China’s A-share listed manufacturing companies. The study finds that urban digital infrastructure construction significantly improves the level of new quality productive forces in manufacturing enterprises,  while the impact is more pronounced in the eastern region, among larger, non-state-owned enterprises, and among manufacturing enterprises with higher technological levels. Mechanistically, urban digital infrastructure construction promotes the development of new quality productive forces in manufacturing enterprises by increasing their industrial robot adoption. Further research finds that the development of digital talent, digital technology, and digital finance can synergize with urban digital infrastructure construction in accelerating the adoption of industrial robots in manufacturing enterprises, thereby boosting their new quality productive forces. The theoretical and empirical research in this paper provides a theoretical basis for China’s policies on advancing the construction of next-generation digital infrastructure, as well as policies on promoting the application of industrial robots and the development of new quality productive forces in manufacturing enterprises through digital infrastructure construction.

Transnational procurement is a crucial aspect of Chinese enterprises’ internationalization. However, mini, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in China still face significant challenges  such as insufficient international connectivity, insufficient understanding of international rules, and immature international operation team in this domain. In this case, sustainable development has emerged as a new opportunity for enterprises expanding globally. This study employs the resource-based view (RBV) theory to analyze the case of Shenzhen’s HUA HUB through qualitative case study methods. The research reveals that HUA HUB, as the first Sustainable Development Innovation Lab established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, effectively facilitates Chinese enterprises’ access to transnational procurement markets by leveraging international cooperation projects as operational vehicles and implementing a tripartite collaboration mechanism involving the UN system, local governments, and enterprises. Specifically, HUA HUB establishes alignment mechanisms with international organizations and regulations to provide network resource access, enhances enterprises’ resource utilization capabilities through targeted capacity-building programs, and promotes resource transformation through sustainable development project incubation. This case demonstrates unique advantages compared to traditional organizational models, offering valuable insights for the internationalization of Chinese MSMEs.

Government procurement and enterprise innovation have always been the focus of academic attention. However, most of the current research takes listed companies as samples, and rarely pays attention to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are the most active subjects of scientific and technological innovation in China, and play an important role in promoting high-quality economic and social development. Government procurement is one of the important national policies to promote the independent innovation of SMEs, whether its policy function has achieved the expected effect remains to be discussed. From the perspective of spatial correlation, this paper focuses on the government procurement orders and patent applications of SMEs in Hebei, China from 2016 to 2022, uses the Moran index and SDM model to test the spatial autocorrelation, aiming to investigate the spatial spillover effect of government procurement on SME innovation, and further examines the moderating effects of fiscal transparency and regional innovation environment. that government procurement has a significant spatial spillover effect on the innovation of SMEs, and higher fiscal transparency and a good regional innovation environment can amplify this effect, besides, this effect is more beneficial to the output of utility models and invention patents, and is more obvious in strategic emerging industries. The research conclusions provide supporting empirical evidence for the state to formulate the policy of government procurement to support the independent innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.

This article begins with the digital transformation of China’s cultural trade, and from the dimensions of development strength and evelopment potential, constructs a multi-dimensional evaluation system encompassing 5 primary indicators and 16 secondary indicators to assess the development level of cross-border e-commerce. Using an improved entropy method, it measures the cross-border e-commerce development levels of 31 regions in China from 2013 to 2022. Based on a two-way fixed effects model and a spatial Durbin model, the findings indicate that cross-border e-commerce development significantly promotes local cultural product exports and exhibits positive spatial spillover effects; and further mechanism tests reveal that cross-border e-commerce indirectly facilitates cultural product exports primarily by driving technological innovation and enhancing urbanization levels. Therefore, improving the development level of cross-border e-commerce, strengthening technological innovation drivers, and deepening the synergy between cross-border e-commerce and urbanization will help better promote the export of China’s cultural products.