In the spartan surroundings of his office, Zhao Lin surveys the village streets on a giant computer screen. On this “magic mirror” are images beamed to him from over 200 CCTV cameras, some with infrared capabilities, via the village’s speedy fiber-optic broadband network, which can alert Zhao to potential traffic accidents, crime, and natural disasters, as well as the growth of crops and prevalence of pests in the fields.

“Every year before, there were thefts and fights between villagers, but through the construction of this network, we were able to reduce the incidence of these crimes,” Zhao, the deputy Party secretary of Shuangshi village, located in Sichuan province, boasts to TWOC. And when he’s not observing the screen, the 34-year-old browses a smartphone app where villagers can record their concerns using wireless internet from one of the area’s seven 5G base stations. “We want to build an interactive bridge between the village committee and the villagers,” he says.

Zhao believes digital technologies like the “Magic Mirror Smart Eyes” hold the key to securing a prosperous future for villages. So does China’s central government: Since 2019, when the State Council issued the “Digital Village Development Strategy Outline,” it has promoted the development of “digital villages” throughout the country. The plan is for rural areas to have fast internet, 5G coverage, telemedicine facilities, high-tech agriculture run on big data, e-commerce, and “smart” finance, government, elderly care, and tourism that run on the latest digital innovations, so that urban and rural residents can enjoy equal access to public services.

But even with vast investment in digital infrastructure in places like Shuangshi, massive hurdles remain before China’s villages are dragged into a modern digital future. Though internet coverage now reaches even some of the remotest parts of the country, many villagers still struggle to use and understand online services, especially the elderly who make up nearly 25 percent of rural residents. Promises of booming sales in e-commerce and vast returns from “Taobao Villages” have failed to materialize in much of the countryside.

Meanwhile, technology for public security and surveillance is sometimes prioritized over improvements that might bring other benefits to villagers. In Shuangshi, the village committee is first focusing on “public governance” (it took eight months to install all the cameras needed for the Magic Mirror) before moving onto “smart agriculture,” according to Zhao.

Nonetheless, digital access is expanding rapidly in rural areas. By the end of 2020, for example, over 98 percent of villages in China had 4G network coverage, while internet penetration to rural areas rose from around 34 percent in 2017, to 57.6 percent in 2021. Online retail sales in rural areas reached 2.05 trillion yuan last year, up from just 180 billion yuan in 2014, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce and the state-affiliated China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

Zhao’s village has seen rapid digitization over the last two years. “The village was the first in Sichuan to achieve full 5G coverage, and then full fiber-optic [broadband] coverage,” he claims. He’s also got big plans to connect the village via the Internet of Things (IoT) with “remote weather sensors, water quality sensors, soil sensors, and pest sensors” all transmitting data seamlessly to the village committee “so that we can understand the environmental situation of the village.”