The diffusion of large language models (LLMs) since late 2022 has begun to alter the architecture of digital commerce. However, scholarship on the phenomenon remains dispersed across disciplines that seldom engage one another. This article synthesises the evidence on LLM-driven reconstruction of Chinese e-commerce platforms and develops a theoretical framework capable of organising it. The review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 protocol. Searches of Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar returned 1,142 records for the period 2019 to 2026. After screening, 87 peer-reviewed studies were retained and triangulated against 24 corporate filings and industry reports covering the 2024 and 2025 financial years of Alibaba, JD.com, and PDD Holdings. Thematic synthesis identifies three streams of enquiry: technical application, strategic capability, and performance evaluation. It also identifies five recurring implementation pathways spanning recommendation and search, conversational commerce, content generation, supply-chain orchestration, and risk governance. Three gaps emerge. The first is a shortage of comparative multi-case evidence built on publicly verifiable data. The second is weak theoretical integration across levels of analysis. The third is immature measurement of performance. In response, the article proposes a Pathway-Capability-Performance (PCP) framework. This framework joins the resource-based view, dynamic-capabilities theory, and platform economics in a single recursive structure. In this structure, implementation pathways reshape six capability domains, and reshaped capabilities generate performance across five dimensions. Performance feedback then conditions subsequent pathway choices. The framework contributes an integrative lens for strategic management research on generative artificial intelligence. It also offers platform executives a diagnostic logic for aligning technological choices with the capabilities those choices require.
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Lin, G. (2026) Intelligent Reconstruction of Chinese E-commerce Platforms under Large Language Models: A Systematic Literature Review and an Integrative Pathway-Capability-Performance Framework. Hong Kong Financial Bulletin, 2(3), 34-42. https://doi.org/10.71052/hkfb2025/HGOL7326