CHINAwatch

Gradual increase of Mainland China's retirement age - implications

BackChat on RTHK (Radio Television Hoing Kong) on 19 September 2024.

China-Africa Summit 2024 - What are the implications

Backchat  on RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) on 6 September,  

Hong Kong Editors Convicted of Sedition in "Blow to Press Freedom"

So the New York Times reported on 28 August. I appeared on Aljazeera Engish Channel to offer some.perspectives (during my holiday sojourn in London)

(Aljazeera English is broadcast in 150 countries with a total audience estimated at 430 million, including London, Hong Kong, and, since 2013, unblocked in the United States.)

Innovation in the Fast Lane: Discussing China’s Auto Industry - CSIS podcast

An insightful podcast dated 12 August 2024 interviewing Michael Laske, a sage American veteran auto industry consultant in China. The podcast is part of the China Field Notes series hosted by leading US China expert Scott Kennedy,  senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Both experts have decades of leading hands-on field work inside China. Their balanced take throws light on how, with an all-society ecosystem of joint ventures, technological manpower, government direction, and mastery of full-spectrum supply and value chains including a digitally-connected economy,  China has emerged relatively rapidly from a student of internal-combustion-engine (ICE) cars to becoming the new Detroit for electric vehicles (EVs), automobiles of a hopefully-greener 21st century. 

 

U.S. and China: Edging Toward the Brink?

US and China: Edging towards the brink? - Under the auspices of Washington D.C. based Aspen Institute, Niall Ferguson, the celebrated historian who predicted Cold War II in 2018, assembled some of the sharpest minds from both sides for an in-depth debate (Aspen Ideas Festival) on the future of U.S.-China relations, featuring David Daokui Li, Andrew Erickso, Keyu Jin, and Matt Pottinger.

The debate is extremely useful as it sharpens the often-twisted popular rhetoric, focussing on how best to "read China" with more productive perspectives, including difference in national psyche, cultural DNAs, the Taiwan issue, China's new "Generation Z", China's pragmatic priorities in the coming decades, and the need for more people-to-people exchanges.  

The Arctic Silk Road - Russia and China seek a trade advantage in the Arctic

The Arctic Silk Road - TV panel discussion on 17 July with TRT World.

How to read China correctly in the coming Third Plenum

Yao Yang is a Professor and Director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University. On June 23, he delivered a speech at an event hosted by Zhenghe Island, a network platform for elites. The following are game-changing highlights gleaned from a translation by "Pekinology", an online platform affiliated with the Beijing-based world-renowned think-tank Center for China and Globalization (CCG): 

(a) China's globalization in the 80's and 90's was characterized by integration and convergence with the then-much-admired American model, not only economically, but socially and to a certain extent, politically. However, after the 2008 financial crisis and increasingly after 2010, China became convinced of its own people-centred socialist path led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). 

(b) This led to America elites' "disappointment" with China. As a self-proclaimed pinnacle nation, America considers its development path the only legitimate one for the world, intolerant of China's alternative model. The United States does not want China to play a leading role in regional or global affairs, seen as inimical to US leadership. This has driven an irrational, emotion-charged bipartisan pushback against China on all fronts.

(c) However, in economics, rationality inevitably prevails. U.S. trade war and attempts at technological decoupling or "de-risking" have not succeeded in isolating China globally.  Although US-China direct trade is declining, America’s dependence on Chinese products is rising. By rules of origin, China’s share of U.S. imports has increased from about 20% in 2018 to 25%. This is because Chinese companies have embraced a global strategy, with many exports shipped from other countries instead of directly from China. (N.B. China's production is globally inter-connected, even for products not qualified as "Made in China", in terms of materials, parts, components or logistics. China remains the largest trading partner for 128 out of 190 nations across the globe.) 

(d) The United States has hiked tariffs on China. Donald Trump said that if elected, he will increase tariffs on China to 60% and impose a 10% tariff on the rest of the world. It is likely that Europe would follow suit. However, China's cost-quality advantage is huge, ranging from 50% to 100% compared to Europe. Even with a 21% tax, most consumers are unlikely to budge. (N.B. If Chinese goods are totally debarred, American consumers and their European counterparts would struggle to cope as virtually all consumer products these days are either Made in China or contain Chinese materials or components). 

(e) Absorbing knowledge and technology from other countries, China's past 40 years of Reform and Opening Up (1978-2018) saw a socio-economic revolution, dismantling class differences and shifting towards enterprise and individualism. However, this has fed wide-spread and deep-seated corruption and unbridled commercialization of compulsory education and excessive financialization of real estate and personal loans. These challenges have shocked social stability and must be rectified. 

(f) The coming Third Plenum will announce the goals for 2035, detailing objectives to be achieved in a  New Era of "High Level Socialism". This is likely to involve comprehensive modernization, tied to China's goal of doubling its income per capita by 2035 through technological competition. Next is Common Prosperity, adjusting the income distribution structure, improving the social security system, and promoting integrated urban and rural development. Third, high-level openness to the outside world (N.B. capitalizing on China's ubiquitous global connectivity, ushering in a new phase of globalization).

Last but not least, against US-led  unprecedented stranglehold on China's access to nano semiconductor chips and other cutting-edge technologies, I should add that China is likely to double down on advancing technological self-reliance, building on its solid foundation as the latest acknowledged "scientific superpower".  

China has become a scientific superpower

The above leader in The Economist of 12 June reveals some game-changing realities, including -

(a) From 2022, China had surpassed both America and the European Union (EU) in the number of high-impact peer-reviewed scientific papers, according to data from Clarivate, a science analytics company, topping citations in Material Science, Chemistry, Engineering, Computer Science, Environment and ecology, Agricultural science, Physics and Mathematics.

(b) The US and EU still retain top slots in Moleculr Biology, Space Science, Neuroscience, Clinical medicine, and Immunology. However, the areas where America and Europe still hold the lead are unlikely to be safe for long. For example, China is growing impressively in Biological and health sciences. 

(c) China now contributes to around 40% of the world’s research papers on AI, compared with around 10% for America and 15% for the EU and Britain combined. In areas like computer vision and robotics, China has a significant lead in research publications.

(d) There are now six Chinese universities or institutions in the world top ten, and seven according to the Nature Index. Tsinghua is considered the number one science and technology university in the world. 

(e) China excels in Applied Research, for example, in perovskite solar panels, producing more patents than any other country, helped by its unparalled industrial base.

(f) China's scientific advance is demonstrated by its Chang’e-6 robotic spacecraft which promises to become the first mission to bring back samples from the hard-to-reach far side of the Moon.

(g) When it comes to basic, curiosity-driven research (rather than applied), China is still playing catch-up—the country publishes far fewer papers than America in the two most prestigious science journals, Nature and Science.  America still spends around 50% more on basic research. 

(h) However, China is spearheading applied research and experimental development in quantum technologies, AI, semiconductors, neuroscience, genetics and biotechnology, regenerative medicine, and exploration of “frontier areas” like deep space, deep oceans and Earth’s poles.

(i) China's universities paid staff bonuses—estimated at an average of $44,000 each, and up to a whopping $165,000—if they published in high-impact international journals. Between 2000 and 2019, more than 6m Chinese students left the country to study abroad. Since the late 2000s, more scientists have been returning to the country than leaving, partly attracted by state-of-the-art equipped labs in China and partly pushed by increasing suspicion and discrimination in Western countries. China now employs more researchers than both America and the entire EU.

The Economist piece tallies with recent findings of  the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) that China is the leading in 37 of the 44 critical technologies, often producing more than five times as much high-impact research as its closest competitor the United States. Click here Among the categories of critical technologies, China dominates in all the subsectors in Artificial Materials and Manufacturing; Energy and Environment; and Sensing, Timing and Navigation with a substantial lead in all other categories.

These observations are supported by China's immense scientific manpower pool, according to George Town University's CSET (Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Click here  By 2025 Chinese universities will be producing more than 77,000 STEM PhDs per year compared to approximately 40,000 in the United States. Excluding international students, Chinese STEM PhD graduates would outnumber their U.S. counterparts more than three-to-one. 

Premiere Li Qiang's 3-party talks in Seoul with Japan and South Korea

Exclusive live Live TV interview on TRT World on 27 May, 2024.

 

 

 

Xi Jinping's Europe visit implications

Backchat of 10 May 2024 on RTHK (Radio Television Hong Kong) with Prof Joseph Mahoney of East China Normal University, Shanghai, and Professor John Burns of The University of Hong Kong. (My intervention starts from time counter 10:35 in the top bar)