Three lessons from Hangzhou, and one potential partnership to follow up: Sanct Social founder on China's Global Digital Trade Expo

KUALA LUMPUR: Sanct Social founder Sion Abednego has shared three lessons from the fifth Global Digital Trade Expo (GDTE) in Hangzhou, China, held from 23 to 26 September 2026, which he attended as a member of the Indonesian business delegation.

The lessons come from two days of business-matching sessions with Chinese technology companies and from the exhibition floor, where AI accelerator cards, voice assistants, industrial AI models and smart glasses were on show and on sale.

Lesson one: support from research to launch

Sion said the Chinese government supports its start-ups from research and development through to launch, which in his view is why their products reach the market at prices that are hard to match: on the production side the companies have little to lose.

"Their prices are hard to match not only because labour there is great and affordable. The bigger reason is who carries the risk at the start. Research and production trials are paid for before a product reaches the market, so the selling price does not have to cover that risk any more. For a young company that is a lesson about how an ecosystem works, more than a lesson about cost," he said in a statement.

Lesson two: one task per city

Each city in China, he said, has its own assigned field of innovation to grow fast, so Hangzhou is not Shenzhen or Shanghai, and is not meant to be. A wall at the expo spelled out Hangzhou's six fields in one word, WEALTH: wellness, education, art, life, transport and health.

Lesson three: technology and culture side by side

The visit fell on the Mid-Autumn Festival, 25 September 2026, celebrated in China with mooncakes and with families gathering to look at the full moon. He said the streets were still full at half past eleven at night, shops open and pavements busy until two in the morning, and that on Hefang Street, the city's old street, a street painter drew visitors' portraits on paper fans a short walk from halls full of AI hardware.

"The technology at the expo was remarkable, and the way they back their start-ups is worth studying. But what I remember most is a whole city going outside to look at the moon together. In Hangzhou people quote the city's own poet, Su Shi: 但愿人长久，千里共婵娟. Dàn yuàn rén chángjiǔ, qiānlǐ gòng chánjuān. It means: may we live long, and though a thousand miles apart, share the same bright moon. That is the feeling Sanct Social is built for," he added.

The greeting heard everywhere that night: 中秋快乐. Zhōngqiū kuàilè. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival.

On the river

At the delegation dinner on a boat after the GDTE closing ceremony, the towers on both banks lit up into one giant screen, and nearly everyone on deck watched it through a phone. He said Sanct Social was built for the opposite: at 6pm the people a user is close to gather in one place, together, even when one of them is across the Causeway and the rest are at home.

What comes next

One partnership from the business-matching sessions is being followed up, and Sanct Social plans to return to China in 2027 to see the prototype. "We came home with homework, not with an announcement. Hangzhou taught us that good products come from long support and from people willing to sit at the same table," Sion said.

About Sanct Social

Sanct Social is a social app for family and close friends, available for iPhone on the Apple App Store in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. For more information, visit https://sanct.social