E-commerce innovation at the center of an economic and geopolitical challenge: Amazon vs. Alibaba

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2.2 CLASH FOR INNOVATION BETWEEN EAST AND WEST 
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas where every year the latest gadgets offered by 
technology companies are presented to the world, is traditionally dominated by American 
companies. But in the last years, the show was marked by the increased presence of Chinese 
companies. More than a third of the 4,000 exhibitors were from China, most of them headquartered 
in the southern city of Shenzhen, which is rapidly emerging as a technology hub rivaling Silicon 
Valley. Among the Chinese products on display were virtual reality devices and smart cars with facial 
recognition software.
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The CES has shown that China is becoming a breeding ground for innovation, and its ambitions are 
not limited to consumer gadgets. Spurred by the government initiative "Made in China 2025", 
Chinese manufacturers are developing advanced industrial robots and high-speed trains. Internet 
companies like Alibaba and Baidu are leading the way in areas where American companies were once 
predominant, such as Artificial Intelligence, while ecosystems of technological start-ups with a spirit 
of conquest are developing in cities Chinese.
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China has a powerful culture of innovation and entrepreneurship and it’s free of regulatory barriers 
as a factor in the rise of license-free innovation.  In order to understand why the Chinese government 
is so keen to promote technological progress, it is important to understand the role of innovation in 
economic growth. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter 
identified five different types of innovation
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: 
- The introduction of new products 
- New production process 
- The opening of new market 
- New sources of supply  
- New organizational structures. 
 
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 Source: ces.tech 
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 Source: ispionline.it/it/tag/made-china-2025 
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 Source: economicsdiscussion.net