China understands what it takes to transform an economy into the digital era. The country is now the world’s largest e-commerce market, with 829 million Internet users, and in 2018, its digital economy, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, was worth 31.3 trillion yuan ($4.5 trillion), accounting for 34.8 percent of the nation’s GDP. Additionally, according to the World Economic Forum, more than 40 percent of the world’s e-commerce transactions currently take place in China, compared to one percent a decade ago. Via the Digital Silk Road, Beijing is taking what it learned during its internal development and applying that knowledge to continue building out the digital infrastructure, e-commerce markets and payment markets abroad. This should enhance nations and communities that become linked to the global marketplace and increase consumer spending in the emerging markets where the new infrastructure and technologies are developed.