China Unveils Plan for Platform Economy Collaboration

Seven Chinese government departments have jointly issued a comprehensive three-year action plan to accelerate the collaborative development of the platform economy, marking the first major sector-specific policy of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan period targeting the digital ecosystem. The plan aims to remove bottlenecks between large technology platforms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), fostering a more integrated and innovative digital economy.

Policy Details and Key Targets

On June 18, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), along with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Data Administration, jointly published the “Action Plan for Promoting Collaborative Development of Large, Medium, and Small Enterprises in the Platform Economy (2026–2028)” (Document No. 工信部联信管〔2026〕119号), according to Xinhua News.

The plan sets ambitious targets to be achieved by 2028, including significantly improving collaborative development levels between enterprises of all sizes, cultivating a group of manufacturing “single-item champion” enterprises in the platform economy, releasing three batches of platform open lists, selecting no fewer than 100 platform resource open scenario pilot projects, and creating no fewer than 10 service platforms and 60 implementable intelligent service application scenarios.

A Strategic Shift from Regulation to Promotion

The policy represents a significant evolution in China’s approach to the platform economy. Between 2020 and 2022, Beijing conducted a major regulatory crackdown on large tech platforms, targeting antitrust violations, data security concerns, and fintech regulation. By 2023–2024, the policy tone had shifted toward supporting platform enterprises in leading development, creating employment, and competing internationally. The 15th Five-Year Plan outline, covering 2026–2030, further emphasized promoting innovative and healthy development of the platform economy.

As noted by the MIIT Information and Communications Administration, China’s platform economy development is at a critical period of transformation and upgrading, urgently needing to grasp the new situation and requirements of the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

Three Pillars of the Action Plan

The action plan is structured around three major task areas, each designed to address specific structural challenges in the platform economy.

Innovation Collaboration

Placed at the forefront of the plan, innovation collaboration aims to strengthen leadership in technological development. The plan calls for accelerating AI布局 (AI deployment) including general-purpose large models, industry-specific large models, and intelligent agents. It also supports the incubation of AI “one-person companies” and encourages large platforms to form innovation consortiums with SMEs.

Yu Xiaohui, President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), told Yicai (First Financial) that “some large enterprises have technology but no scenarios, while some small enterprises have ideas but no resources — this leads to resource mismatch in the innovation chain.” He described the plan as a “game-breaking move” to solve coordination problems at the institutional level and a “long-term strategy” to further consolidate the foundation of digital and intelligent development.

Ecosystem Collaboration

The plan seeks to build a fair, transparent, and orderly platform ecosystem. Key measures include supporting quality improvement and brand building for SMEs, supporting collaborative international expansion (协同出海), and strengthening platform compliance. The policy specifically targets algorithm transparency, traffic governance, and what Chinese policymakers call “involution-style competition” (内卷式竞争) in platform ecosystems.

Open Collaboration

Perhaps the most transformative pillar, open collaboration aims to accelerate the formulation of platform open lists, guiding large platform enterprises to share technology, data, and computing power with SMEs. The plan calls for establishing public service platforms for SMEs and breaking down data silos that have long hindered collaboration.

Yu Xiaohui emphasized that “breaking data silos and smoothing factor circulation has become an urgent task for deepening the open linkage of the platform economy.”

Real-World Impact: The Delin Lugang Case

The Xinhua article highlights Delin Lugang Supply Chain Service Co., Ltd., a company incubated from Ansteel Group, as a case study in platform economy transformation. Founded in 2016, the company built a smart supply chain service platform integrating online trading, smart logistics, warehousing, and distribution. The platform has attracted over 40,000 enterprises and customers along the steel industry chain, demonstrating how platform economy models can transform traditional industries.

Analysis and Implications

The action plan signals a clear strategic direction for China’s digital economy under the 15th Five-Year Plan. For large technology companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, and Meituan, the policy creates new expectations around opening their technology, data, and computing resources to smaller players. For SMEs, it promises better access to AI tools, data resources, and computing power that were previously concentrated within large platforms.

The policy also explicitly supports the international expansion of Chinese platform enterprises, suggesting that Beijing views platform economy leadership as a strategic asset in global technology competition.

Challenges Ahead

Despite the ambitious framework, significant challenges remain. Coordinating enforcement across seven different government agencies will require careful implementation. Balancing platform openness with data security and privacy concerns — particularly under China’s existing data protection regime — presents a delicate trade-off. Large platforms may resist sharing proprietary data and algorithms. And ensuring that the policy’s benefits reach actual SMEs rather than being captured by intermediaries will be critical to its success.

What to Watch For

The coming months will see the first batch of platform open lists published, providing a concrete test of the policy’s implementation. The development of public service platforms for SMEs and the selection of pilot projects will offer early indicators of how effectively the plan translates from paper to practice. As AI integration with the platform economy accelerates, the plan’s emphasis on “AI + Platform Economy” could emerge as a defining theme of China’s digital development through 2028.

As Yu Xiaohui summarized, the action plan marks “an important measure at the national level in the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan to accelerate the high-quality development of the platform economy, marking that China’s platform economy is entering a new stage of diversified and collaborative development.”