@article{MAO2026, 
author = {Wensi MAO and Biao WANG},
title = {China's Digital Publishing in 2025: High-Quality Development under Digital China and Cultural Powerhouse Agendas, with an Outlook for 2026 and the 15th Five-Year Plan},
year = {2026},
journal = {Science-Technology & Publication},
volume = {45},
number = {3},
pages = {14-27},
keywords = {integrated development, new quality productive forces, digital publishing, Digital China, cultural powerhouse},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.16510/j.cnki.kjycb.20260327.003},
doi = {10.16510/j.cnki.kjycb.20260327.003},
abstract = {Situated in the post–20th National Congress policy context, this article reviews the development landscape of China's digital publishing in 2025 and provides an outlook for 2026 and the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The paper frames 2025 as a dual temporal hinge: it is simultaneously the concluding year of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the agenda-setting year for the 15th Five-Year Plan. Within this hinge, digital publishing is positioned as a key force for high-quality cultural development and as an enabling component of the digital economy, under the strategic backdrop of advancing Digital China development and building China into a cultural powerhouse. The article adopts a comprehensive annual-review logic and organizes its synthesis across seven dimensions explicitly named in the abstract: policy guidance, content building, technology application, model innovation, talent building, international communication capability, and safeguard mechanisms. This dimensional structure functions as the paper's operational method: it converts an otherwise diffuse "trend review" into a structured account of where progress is claimed, how progress is categorized, and which domains constitute the sector's capability system. Across these dimensions, the paper highlights a general trajectory of "deep integrated development." Digital publishing's progress is described as multidirectional rather than single-track: policy guidance provides a stabilizing institutional framework; content building addresses the foundation of high-quality supply; technology application advances under a digital-intelligence orientation; model innovation manifests in new modes and new business forms; talent building is treated as a capacity prerequisite; international communication capability is framed as an outward-facing development direction; and safeguard mechanisms provide governance conditions for sustainable expansion. Importantly, the article links this trajectory to the macro-level goal of developing new quality productive forces, treating digital publishing not only as a cultural-sector modernization project but also as an industrial upgrading project that requires new drivers of development. The value of the paper's framing lies in its explicit coupling of "strategic context" and "sectoral capability." By placing digital publishing within Digital China and cultural powerhouse agendas, and by highlighting the sector's progress across the seven named dimensions, the article makes an implicit claim: high-quality digital publishing development depends on the simultaneous strengthening of policy, content, technology, models, talent, international communication, and governance safeguards. The outlook portion extends this logic into 2026 and beyond, suggesting that future development should continue to be assessed through the same capability dimensions and the same high-quality-development orientation, while being aligned with the planning and layout tasks of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Overall, the article provides a structured narrative of progress and prospects that treats digital publishing as an increasingly important force in China's contemporary cultural construction and digital economic development.}
}