중국 농촌경제 발전에서 전자상거래의 역할과 한계 - 타오바오촌을 중심으로 –

Taobao Villages are a kind of startup cluster created by combining the rural economy and e-commerce platform. This paper analyzes how e-commerce in rural areas, represented by Taobao Villages, has affected the rural economy. First, selling products from rural non-agricultural sectors in the online market means selling the products of traditional TVEs established in rural areas after the reform and opening period. Taobao Villages have grown in the coastal suburbs where TVEs have traditionally developed, and their main products are very similar to those of the past. TVEs in these rural areas have been forming clusters before in order to secure competitiveness in the supply side, and the densely populated TVEs are directly connected to Taobao villages. However, the development of Taobao villages was also delayed in the central and western regions that did not meet these conditions. Therefore, it is true that TVEs entered the online market through Taobao villages, but it was a phenomenon that occurred intensively in some specific regions. Second, there have been some successful cases in rural areas where poverty escaping through onlineization in rural areas is successful, but in the central and western regions where poverty reduction is really needed, the development of Taobao Villages did not have much impact on the poor rural areas. Third, most of the online companies in Taobao Villages still have not solved the intrinsic problems that TVEs had in the past. Their products still lacked diversity and low added value. Their own technological development capabilities also stagnated. Therefore, although Taobao Villages had some positive effects in reducing the gap between urban and rural areas, they do not seem to play a significant role in resolving regional imbalances.