CHINAwatch

From "Made in China" to "Rules Made BY China"

China Perspectives - an insigthly YouTube expose dated 26 May 2025 by Miriam Wickertsheim, a German national with over 15 years of experience living and working in China. 

Iran's FM Abbas Araghchi in China Ahead of Nuclear Talks with US in Oman

Exclusive live TV interview  on 24 April with NewsX World, India's fastest-growing English-language TV news channel claiming 100 million viewers. 

China urges US to end its "hegemonic" view

Live interview on 26 March 2025 with NewX World, India's fastest-growing English-language global news channel claiming some 100 million viewers. (My segment starts from time counter 19:35)  

Paradigm Shifts Upending the World Order 2025

A PowerPoint presentation on 4 March 2025 to a business group meeting at HSBC HQ confernence room.
Download Paradigm Shifts Upending the World Order 2025 - EGN Group meeting 4 March 2025

 

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.

 

 

 

How the US Keeps Fighting China, Knowing It Won’t Win?

The US has no Plan B, says Professor Radhika Desai, Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, on the YouTube Thinkers Forum on 25 January 2024. She goes over paradigm shifts in 2023 on America's hegemony, including Ukraine and Gaza; the long-term impact on US's own economy; Russia's resilience against US-led pushback; questionable durability of the "casino-like" open-market dollar-system; the future of US-China relations; China's more restrained and globally-inclusive diplomatic stance; and the upcoming impactful elections in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

I should add that America's so-called Plan A against China has only four blunt coercive tools: (a) US military dominance, (b) US technological lead, (c) the weaponized dollar, and (d) America's so-called global alliance-network. These are proving less and less effective against China. 

As for (a), China has vastly expanded its military on all fronts. While unwilling and unable to match America's global military presence and supremacy, Chins is well capable of defending its core interests. This includes a mobile, hypersonic, nuclear-capable Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) System with multiple, separately-navigable warheads, a blue-water navy with more warships than the United States, state-of-the-art fifth-generation fighter planes and bombers, not to mention cyberwarfare and AI expertise. 

As for (b), nano-semiconductor-chips excepted for the time being, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has found that China is leading in 37 out of 44 21st-century cutting-edge technologies. Albeit excluded from the US-led International Space Station project from the very start, which is near the end of its useful life, China has succeed in building and operating its own Tiangong Space Station from scratch. It is the only country able to send a successful robotic probe to the far side of the moon. Its lunar program is picking up speed, partnering with other nations including some advanced countries. 

As for (c), indiscriminate long-arm dollar sanctions have pushed countries in the Global South to bypass the risks of exposure to a weaponized dollar. Some are beginning to transact bilateral trade with China using other currencies including the Renminbi. China's digital sovereign currency (e-CNY) is gaining traction internationally. After all, China is by far the world's largest trader and manufacturer. It remains the larger trading partner for 128 countries compared with America's 57. Seven of the world's top 11 container ports are in China, including Hong Kong. Even not "Made in China", China is embedded in myriad products across the globe, including materials. minerals, components and logistics, decoupling or de-risking regardless. 

As for (d), marginalized for decades under US hegemony, the Global South has become more able to defend their national sovereignty and strategic interests. Witness the massive Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) comprising ASEAN countries and their main trading partners. Absent the United States, this is the world's largest free trade bloc representing a third of global GDP and a third of world population, where China remains a central trading hub.  More developing countries have also chosen to join the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Group as well as the Eurasian Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) where China and Russia hold sway. Witness also the more independent tilt of the Middle East and even India. Fact is, most nations in the Global South don't want to be forced to choose between America and China, which remains a key source for economic development, including trade and infrastructure.

The fixation on coercion to serve American interests often ignores stark realities, includinjg Adam Smith's ''comparative advantage". China has been buying a lot of international passenger jets from Boeing and Airbus, as it has yet no comparable alternatives. However, as China is the world's largest manufacturer, the reverse is true for most of China's manufacturing ouput, including its fully-integrated shipbuilding production chains. According to a report of 19 April in Foreign Policy, Chinese businesses manufacture  96 percent of the world’s dry cargo shipping containers. A single Chinese firm, ZPMC, claims that it supplies  70 percent of the world’s cargo cranes. This compares to U.S.shipyards manufacturing fewer than 1 percent of the cargo vessels that ply the global seas. Using coercive sanctions to turn the table is fanciful. 

All in all, as pointed out by Professor Desai, the days of American hegemony are numbered. The sooner America's elites wake up from their pipe-dream of perpetuating American hegemony through brute coercion, the better would be the propsects for a more inclusive and peaceful world, where the United States can still play a crucial role.   

Xi Thinks China Can Slow Climate Change. What if He’s Right?

So asks Jacob Dreyer in a New york Times Guest Essay dated 19 April 2024. Dreyer is a Shanghai-based  American editor and writer focused on the intersection of the Chinese political economy and science.

Dreyer's essay ticks all the right boxes on China;s green energy surge. These include China's powerful state-directed model in achieving all-of-society outcomes to combat Climate Change, its unbeatable cost-competitiveness for green energy businesses including EVs (electric vehicles), and its imperatives of achieving energy security through reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels through hostile transit "choke points" (e.g. the Malacca Strait controlled by America's Seventh Fleet). 

To these should be added China's possession of comprehensive and globally-oriented green-energy supply-and-value-chains, includng rare-earths and other materials, a  manufacturing powerhouse covering all aspects of production and utilization, and external connectivity through global Belt and Road linkages. 

China's current global green energy dominance is well documented in the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s Renewables 2023 Report (released Janury 2024). See its Executive Summary and a Reuters report of 11 January 2024. 

According to the IEA report, China will account for 56% of renewable energy capacity additions in the 2023-28 period. China is expected to increase renewable capacity by 2,060 gigawatts (GW) compared with the rest of the world's 1,574 GW addition. China accounts for almost 90% of the global upward forecast revision, consisting mainly of solar photovoltaic (PV). 

The IEA report flags up China's 80‑95% share of global green energy supply chains. Its solar PV manufacturing capabilities have almost doubled since last year, "creating a global supply glut," says the IEA.

Nevetheless, the IEA points out that China already accounts for 53% of the world's 2,095 GW of operating coal-fired generating capacity, a share likely to increase in coming years as more coal plants are retired in the developed world. So China is likely to achieve its declared goal of net zero carbon emission (carbon neutrality) by 2060 only during the final years before the target.  

Why Beijing insists on Russia's inclusion in any peace talks on Ukraine; why Biden suddenly offers an olive branch over nuclear armament talks with Russia and China

Exclusive recorded interview (in English) on 19 March with MIC Izvestia, the largest Russian-language multi-media channel based in Moscow, with 4 TV channels, 5 websites and the oldest Russian newspaper Izvestia. 

New World, New Order How to reposition ourselves for a New Economy

Download New World New Order - How to reposition for a New Economy (A business dinner presentation)