INNOVATION

The rising prominence of China is one of the most important developments shaping the Internet.

Behind China's Internet boom is Beijing's unique way of management. China has long been dedicated to developing the Internet, but it has also underscored the rule of law to ensure Internet security, which Chinese President Xi Jinping said is a concern for the country's security and development.

Xi became head of China's central Internet security and informatization leading group in February, revealing the country's resolve to build itself into a strong cyber power.

This way of Internet management, itself a Chinese innovation, has not stifled the creativity of the Internet as some had predicted. Innovative Internet products and services are significantly changing the landscape of the Internet.

At least six of the world's 10 largest social networks in 2013 were developed by Chinese Internet firms, according to a report from U.S. business and technology news website Business Insider. China-based social networking apps such as WeChat and Sina Weibo have achieved significant scale.

Weibo, China's answer to Twitter, debuted this month on the Nasdaq exchange with a 19.1 percent jump, bringing the company 287 million U.S. dollars.

The success of the microblogging service, which official figures say over 500 million are using, highlighted the innovation-driven development of China's Internet companies.

Weibo may have imitated Twitter at first, but it adapted and improved by constantly introducing new functions to maintain a high number of active users.

"More Chinese Internet companies will be going abroad like Weibo did," said Fang Xingdong, founder of Blogchina.com and an IT columnist. "The year of 2014 will mark the beginning of the global strategy of China's Internet."

In 2013, China's online retail market expanded to over 1.8 trillion yuan, almost the size of Malaysia's GDP that year.

"We have built up the Chinese people's trust in online transactions," said Jack Ma, founder of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba.

China will become "more open, more transparent, more willing to share" in the next two decades because of the Internet, he said.