Healthy China 2030, launched in 2019, set local health officials racing to reach their KPIs. Those who reach all of them—especially if they do so despite inadequate budgets and local indifference—will be featured on national news, emulated nationwide, promoted and invited to a languid summer at the Party’s lakeside campus with famous health experts from across the globe.

Here’s what they’ve already accomplished and what to expect.

2030 Targets

• Life expectancy up from 76.5 in 2015 to 80 years in 2030. [USA will be 79].

• Healthy life expectancy up from 68 to 74.5 years. [USA will be 65].

• Premature mortality from major non-communicable diseases (cardiovascular, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, diabetes) fall 30%. On target.

• National health literacy rate: 30% of the population goal has already been exceeded.

• Main health indicators: To reach the level of high-income countries. On track

• Health equity between urban/rural and different regions. On track

Category Targets

• Healthy Living: 30% —530 million people taking regular physical exercise, reducing salt, oil, sugar intake

• NCD Control: 30% reduction through improved management of hypertension, diabetes, etc.

• Maternal & Child Health: down from 5.6 deaths/100K to 3.5. [USA 5.5]

• Infant mortality: On track to fall from 3.8 to 3.0. [USA 5.3].

• Health Services: Cut out-of-pocket health costs by 25% with universal health

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A drop of blood can screen for early-stage cancer. Refrigerator-sized detection system now fits in your hand and boosts accuracy 10,000x.

From size to speed: Huawei’s τ-Scaling Law and The Thermodynamic Edge—a new approach to AI computing.

Airbus Pushed Its Hydrogen Aircraft Timeline to 2045. China’s First MW-Class Hydrogen Turboprop Engine flies for 16 Minutes.

Quantum tech boosts laser quantum interaction 20x without extra power.

ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 hits Cannes with 95-minute AI film, ‘Hell Grind’.

Economy, Finance & Trade

“Sinking the data center in the sea is the inevitable choice” 10% of a lands, AIDC, wind farm generates 95% of its power on site, 90% cooling cost savings.

First shale oil demonstration well lifts 2 million tonnes. Wth proven reserves of 327 MT, total resources of 10.5 MT.

Families will spend $1.5 billion on elder-care robots this year as the market transitions from verification phase to mass application.

Where Working Robots Actually Sell: where terrain, safety, and reliability matter more than general intelligence.

Foreign investment in China explodes: High‑tech FDI up 20% YoY, to $17 billion, that’s 40% of total FDI. Total accumulated FDI exceeds $3.6 trillion.

EU companies double down on China manufacturing despite EU de-risking push.

China overtakes US as Germany’s main foreign investor for first time in eight years.

Chinese LLMs hold 42% market share, DeepSeek cuts prices 75% on flagship.

Meituan’s drone delivery infrastructure has started commercial service.

First delivery truck network with 120-second recharge, a major step in electrifying urban logistics and reducing transport costs.

Aviation market’s record domestic demand. 70 M seats in May8, 3% of all seats to, from, and within the country.

Society & Environment

How China Protects Individual Rights Better Than Any Country In the Supposed Democratic Free World “No person may publicly mock, slander, abuse, threaten, harass, accuse any other person, thus protecting YOUR freedom & rights”.

The end of the hukou? China shifts to residency‑based public services.

Older Workers Win Guaranteed Minimum Wage and Injury Insurance. Workers employed beyond retirement age no longer excluded from standard labor protections.

Chinese cities used 22 billion cubic meters of recycled water in 2025, as reclaimed water has become a stable second water source for cities.

BYD assumes full, uncapped financial liability for at-fault accidents when its urban driving system is active in China— a commitment Tesla refuses to make.

Flash-charging: BYD vs. CATL after BYD showed that ordinary drivers consistently adding hundreds of kilometers, in minutes, under real-world conditions.

The Catholic Church In China Is Better Than Yours...Here’s Why. I debunk the fake accustions there is religious oppression of Christians in China...

Tibet — Daily Life, Faith, and Culture. Felix Abt takes us into a polyandrous family, debating monks, bilingual classrooms.

Geopolitics

Festival promoting South Korea’s ceramic culture faces fury over Chinese-made prizes.

Hong ​Kong overtakes Switzerland as the top global centre for cross-border wealth, with $2.95 trillion to Switzerland’s $2.94 trillion.

The 15-Year Negotiation Behind the China-Russia First Crude Oil Pipeline.

US Investment in China Rose 25% in 2026 Despite Overall 10.3% FDI Decline

Diplomacy & Propaganda

Foreign Minister Wang Yi at UN: "We need a new Secretary-General in the United Nations who is not America's puppet, but a true guardian of the United Nations and who will put an end to the era of America's unilateral dominance."

‘Build American AI’, bankrolled by OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz, is funding a campaign to spread pro-AI messaging and stoke fears about China.

Defense

Report on the Military Activities of Non-US Extra-Regional Countries in the Western Pacific in 2025, released in Beijing.

U.S. Coast Guard Patrols Near Scarborough Shoal with Philippine Forces Amid Concerns of Potential Chinese Build-Up.

PLA honor guards’ training: precise marching, standing still for 3 hours, binding sandbags to their legs, hanging water bottles on their arms.

PLAN commissions a Type 052D class destroyer, the 35th of its class which, with ten Type 055 class, gives the fleet 45 new-generation destroyers.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. — Mark Twain

Russian statistical demographer, Prof. Boris Borisov, used Frank Dikotter’s techniques on the US population before and after the Great Depression and found that seven million Americans starved to death. Is America covering up this tragedy, or is there another explanation?

Based on previous demographic trends, the US expected a population of 142-million in 1940, but it reached only 132-million, of which only 3-million can be explained by migration dynamics. What happened to the 7.4-million missing people?

American Famine

According to the US statistics, the US lost 8, 553,000 people from 1931 to 1940. Afterwards, population growth indices change twice instantly exactly between 1930-1931: the indices drop and stay on the same level for ten years. There can no explanation to this phenomenon found in the extensive text of the report by the US Department of Commerce “Statistical Abstract of the United States,” the author wrote.

A lot more people left the country than arrived during the 1930s – the difference is estimated at 93,309 people, whereas 2.960,782 people arrived in the country a decade earlier. Well, let’s correct the number of total demographic losses in the USA during the 1930s by 3,054 people.

There is a remarkable similarity with events taking place in the USSR during the 1930s. Few people know about five million American farmers (a million families) whom banks ousted from them lands because of debts. The US government did not provide them with land, work, social aid, pension – nothing. Every sixth American farmer was affected by famine. People were forced to leave their homes and go to nowhere without any money and any property. They found themselves in the middle of nowhere enveloped in massive unemployment, famine and gangsterism.

Simultaneously, the US government destroyed foodstuffs that vendors could not sell. Market rules were observed strictly: unsold goods should always be categorized as redundant and they could not be given away to the poor because it could cause damage to businesses. A variety of methods was used to destroy redundant food. They burnt crops, drowned them in the ocean or plowed 10 million hectares of harvesting fields. About 6.5 million pigs were killed at that time.

A child recollected about those years: “We changed our usual food for something for available. We used to eat bush leaves instead of cabbage. We ate frogs too. My mother and my older sister died during a year. (Jack Griffin).

Public works introduced by President Roosevelt became a salvation for a huge number of jobless and landless Americans. However, the salvation was only a phantom. The works conducted under the aegis of the Public Works Administration and the Civil Works Administration were about building channels, roads or bridges in remote, wild and dangerous territories. Up to 3.3 million people were involved in those works at a time, whereas the total number of people amounted to 8.5 million, not counting prisoners. Conditions and death rates at those works are to be studied separately.

A member of public workers would make $30 and pay $25 of taxes from this. So a person could make only $5 for a month of hard work in malarial swamps, conditions comparable to Stalin’s GULAG. The Public Works Administration (PWA) bore a striking resemblance to GULAG. The PWA was chaired by “American Beria,” Secretary of Interior Affairs, Harold Ickes, who threw about two million people into camps for the unemployed youth. “Ickes (1874–1952) later interned USA’s ethnic Japanese in concentration camps in only 72 hours (1941-1942).

Famine Fact Check

• The US lost 7 million people due to

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Unitree debuts world’s first pilotable humanoid for $575,000. Sells out immediately.

China’s first ultra-high-frequency optoelectronics. The US still leads in manufacturable, integrated solutions, a classic “performance vs. scale” race.

Stem cells create first laboratory-grown autonomous, sinoatrial node, the heart’s pacemaker. It could transform cardiac disease research and drug screening.

TP Huang interviews Paul Triolo: REE supply chains, AI, and the IP that rules them. Paul does this stuff for a living.

Economy & Trade

Solar Drip System Triples Cotton Yields, Cuts Water 30% in Uzbekistan.

Xining Launches Cold-Climate Vegetable Brand to Supply 200,000 Tonnes to Greater Bay Area.

Exports rose +14% YoY in April, to $359 billion, the highest monthly reading on record. Chip exports up 100% YoY, laptops, tablets, up 47%.

Integrated circuit exports of $104 billion in January–April, up 83.7% YoY, 12.2% of mechanical/electrical export value.

Bristol Myers Squibb’s $15 billion partnership with Hengrui Pharma for 13 early-stage clinical programs.

Hotel sector shines as visa-free travelers account for 78% of inbound visitors.

Environment & Society

Three newborn Hainan gibbons bring population to 44 across seven groups. Asian elephant population hits 400. Abies beshanzuensis, a rare fir species, grew from 3 in 1963 to 4,000 today. Paphiopedilum spicerianum, an orchid species, grew from 10 plants in 2003, to 200.

Crackdown on Disposal of EV Batteries. The black market in illegal recycling of batteries under siege with birth-to-retirement tracking.

First 500 MW solar farm commissioned for direct data center supply under the “computing-electricity coordination” model.

Electricity consumption, a key economic barometer, rose 5.4% YoY, and total power use rose 6% to 820.5 billion kWh in April.

Laws punished men for crying; people with messy handwriting forced to drink ink. Official disciplines in imperial China saw lawbreakers’ hands cut off; eyebrows shaved, faces tattooed.

Elites used water fans, ice, bamboo pillows to cool down. Temperatures in ancient China climbed to 43º C.

Governance & Politics

Saturated, technology-enabled rescue and mobile shelters replace improvised disaster mobilization. In a 2025 quake, the Wing Loong-2H drone surveyed the epicentre and helped pull 407 people out inside 24 hours, while the BeiDou’s satellite messaging service kept everyone in the loop.

“After receiving an application, the Party organization shall, within one month, dispatch someone to speak with the applicant to discuss their study and work experience, understanding of the Party, motivation for joining, observance of law and discipline, family circumstances, and other basic circumstances, and introduce to them basic Party knowledge and the standards and conditions for Party members.” (Of 20 million applicants in 2023, the Party admitted 2.1 million).

Discrimination, rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression are unlawful, China’s top court responds to a petition, 信访 xinfang, the centuries-old channel for appealing directly to the Emperor.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

Taiwan’s Impossible Bind: “We’ve bet it all on Team America, and now things are very awkward”.

Wingtech Technology sues Dutch chipmaker Nexperia under anti-foreign sanctions law. Power struggle continues.

Beijing nixes US Defense Department visits until Washington stops arming Taiwan.

Revealing: how the White House portrays the visit in videos and photographs. “I worked at the NSC. The images are deliberately chosen and freighted with meaning: Trump is Chinamaxxing”.

Joshua Frank: ‘China’s “green economic imperialism” in Africa and Latin America after Emmanuel Macron condemned China for operating with a “predatory logic” across the continent’.

China’s $400-million lithium sulphate processing plant ends Zimbabwe exports of unprocessed lithium.

China warns Trump over arms sales to Taiwan, talks with Taiwanese separatists, suspends planned visits by U.S. military personnel.

Defense & Security

FPV drones cause 7% of frontline casualties. Cheaper than a meal, they kill with surgical precision. Ukraine makes four million annually. China makes four billion.

Pakistan Air Force J-10C fighters’ 9-0 kill ratio against Eurofighters during simulated combat engagements in Qatar in 2024.

The West possess immense wealth, sophisticated systems, financial influence. But war is fought with shells, missiles, drones, parts, fuel, and production lines that can replenish what battles consume: the West can no longer produce at the scale modern war demands.

American corporations today are like the great European monarchies of yore: They have the power to control the rules under which they function and to direct the allocation of public resources. This is not a prediction of what’s to come; this is a simple statement of the present state of affairs. Corporations have effectively captured the United States: its judiciary, its political system, and its national wealth, without assuming any of the responsibilities of dominion. Harvard Law School.

As we are reluctantly realizing, unregulated capitalism contains from birth the seeds of its own destruction—and ours. By prioritizing private profit over public purpose it inevitably undermines the very nations that permit it. JM Keynes explained this to the US President and his economic advisers. It’s time to revisit his predictions.

Corporate Capture

American corporations today are like the great European monarchies of yore: They have the power to control the rules under which they function and to direct the allocation of public resources. This is not a prediction of what’s to come; this is a simple statement of the present state of affairs. Corporations have effectively captured the United States: its judiciary, its political system, and its national wealth, without assuming any of the responsibilities of dominion. Harvard Law School.

When corporations participate in governance through lobbying, campaign finance, and revolving doors, the state serves shareholder value instead of citizens. Citizens United v. FEC, for example, unleashed unlimited corporate political spending in the US, sufficient to effectively captured the United States’ judiciary, political system, and national wealth, without assuming any of the consequences.

China, by contrast, maintains strict separation between business and political power. The Communist Party directs private companies to serve national goals rather than allowing them to capture the state.

Offshoring and Capital Flight

Read more

Part One, ‘Paper Money’, is here.

Money, War & Inflation

In 1161, when the Jin attacked the Southern Song, the issuance of money vouchers rocketed to 23 million strings of cash and remained there, more or less, until the end of the century. In the thirteenth century, the circulation period would be extended to four, six, nine, and finally ten years, and the number of issues increased as well. Issue ninety-nine, the last, came out in 1234, the year when the Mongol invaders crushed the Jin dynasty.

Besides exchange bills and money vouchers, Song merchants purchased credit instruments, or receipts, from the government and exchanged them for monopolized commodities such as salt, tea, alum, and perfume. A receipt entitled its holder to obtain the monopolized good in a specified quantity and quality at a certain place. Receipts of this nature implied long-distance travel and transport of bulky goods and the willingness of merchants to take risks. But the profits to be had in specialized stores in the capital and other trading localities, where holders of the receipts and the monopolized goods could meet to negotiate business matters and explore price differences, made the risks worthwhile.

Here, merchants had a place to buy and sell receipts and goods with the intention of making even more profit at lower risk. In order to secure its control over the receipt trade and participate in commerce, the government established its own Buying Receipt Office. The receipt system was immensely important for securing military supplies and provisioning troops at the northern border.

Snake Catching And The Two-Tax System

In 780, Yang Yan, a high Tang official, established the two-tax system with the intention of unifying the multifarious existing taxes and alleviating some of the burden on poor farmers. Under this plan, taxes were collected according to local conditions in either one or two payments per year, in summer or in autumn. In 1077, 31 percent of the annual taxes were paid in summer and 69 percent in autumn.

This innovation was a first step toward setting a state budget that would project the government’s annual expenditure and attempt to reconcile it with projected annual income. “An estimate of the national expenditures should first be made every year,” Yang Yan wrote, and on the basis of that projection, the required amount of tax would be apportioned among the various tax counties.

The two-tax system replaced an old system consisting of a land tax paid annually in the form of cereal grains, duty paid in the form of textile fabrics, and compulsory service provided in the form of time and labor. The new tax was a combination of a land tax and a house tax, which included wealth other than land, and it was to be paid in both cash and kind. This reform was intended to rationalize the tax system and in the process get the inflation rate caused by thirty years of civil war under control. Tax on land remained the most important source of government revenue, and for this reason many officials (who at that time belonged to the landed aristocracy) opposed it.In the first decade of the ninth century, when Liu Zongyuan was demoted to Hunan province, he wrote a story about a snake-catcher and his right to pay his tax in kind.

Part of Liu’s job had been to collect taxes, and when he suggested to the snake-catcher that he should pay his taxes in cash instead of snakes, the snake-catcher burst into tears and cried, “Can you not take pity on me and let me go on living? Unfortunate as my service may be, it is not as unfortunate as returning to pay taxes in cash. If I had not done my service this way, I would have come into trouble long ago. It is sixty years since the three generations of my family settled in this village. As time passed by my neighbors incurred more difficulties to earn their living from day to day. They have used up what they produced and income from their houses, appealed for help and finally had to move”. They suffered from hunger and thirst, wind and rain, heat and cold, and breathed poisonous air and died in confession, and I alone have survived on account of my snake-catching”.

Liu Zongyuan concluded that the poison of onerous taxation was worse than that of snakes, and he expressed his hope that those whose duty it is to observe the people’s way of life before making government policy should take note of this case and allow that taxes are paid in kind.

Theoretically, the two-tax system abolished compulsory labor service. However, it soon became apparent that no Chinese government could do without it. During the Five Dynasties period the rate of conscripted laborers increased dramatically, and the service continued to exist in the Song. All men between the ages of twenty and sixty years of age except officials, the household members of officials, monks, and the military were subject to labor service.

Extravagance and Waste

Ouyang Xiu, censor to the emperor, complained about imperial extravagance and the hardship it imposed on forced laborers: “I am informed that in consequence of the recent birth of a princess, a demand has been made on the treasury for no less than 8,000 pieces of silk. Now the rigor of winter is just at its height, and the wretched workmen of the Dyeing Department, forced to break ice before they can get water, will suffer unspeakable hardships in supplying the amount required. And judging by Your Majesty’s known sentiments of humanity and thrift, I cannot believe that this wasteful labor service is to be imposed, though rumor indeed has it that the dyers are already at work.” We do not know the outcome of his complaint.

Furthermore, local people had to fulfill various lower administrative services at the local level without pay.During the Tang dynasty, local tax revenues were divided three ways. One third went to the Central Imperial Treasury at the capital, one third was transferred to the provincial administration, and the remaining third was used to cover the local expenditures of the prefecture. This tax distribution system granted local authorities a certain degree of freedom in managing fiscal matters, but it also represented the central government’s willingness to abandon efficient control over local authorities in return for the benefit of fixed and regular tax returns. In a financial system where the government could not run the state into debt—because the financial instruments for this kind of borrowing had not been invented—the annual tax income had to be sufficient to cover expenditures. Collecting tax in advance was the only method available to pay for impending expenses.

But in practice, the annual revenue of the two-tax system did not cover annual expenses, and thus the state reinstated its monopoly on alcohol, tea, and salt. The sale of these commodities produced added revenue. During the rule of Emperor Xuanzong in the early ninth century, the salt monopoly alone contributed half of the state’s annual income. These monopolies extended into the Song dynasty, when perfume was added to the list. By the 1170s the salt monopoly still accounted for half of state revenues, to which were added taxes from distilleries and breweries (of which 1,861 were reported in 1077).

The Song dynasty also adopted the system of dividing local revenues into three streams, but the Central Imperial Treasury now got most of it: 62 percent of income from silver, 49 percent of income from silk fabrics, 67 percent of silk wadding, 53 percent of cloth, and 35 percent of cereals. — The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China, by Dieter Kuhn.

Reading

Here Comes China

Democratized Money: How China's System Builds Wealth for the Many

The State will own the big banks and the big industrial and commercial enterprises. Enterprises, such as banks, railways and airlines, whether Chinese-owned or foreign-owned, which are either monopolistic in character or too big for private management, shall be operated and administered by the state, so that private capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people: this is the main principle of the regulation of capital. …

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4 months ago · 12 likes · 3 comments · Godfree Roberts

Coal plant pollution turns into cheap fertilizer. 10,000 tons of CO₂ → 30,000 tons of fertilize. Yields rise 6%.

Polluted wastewater produces ammonia for fertilizer production using AI chemistry.

Coal-to-gas project revived: captures 12% of domestic natural gas needs after the project was shelved in 2014.

Former Harvard scientist rebuilds lab in Shenzen. Charles Lieber, the world’s leading researcher in brain-computer interfaces, BCI.

“The best open-source AI models now come from China. Researchers everywhere are using them,” Yann LeCun, Godfather of deep learning, Turing Awardee.

Scalable 2D Semiconductors, Graphene and Triboelectric Nanogenerators as the Materials Foundation for Digital Westphalia. Read the last paragraph, slowly.

With neutral atom technology, Hanyuan-2 supports two quantum processors simultaneously using 10% of the power of conventional quantum computers.

Industry & Commerce

China’s AI model usage surpass US, Tencent soars 800%, Government releases first AI agent guidelines.

China’s Shipbuilding Completes 15.68M DWT in Q1 with 195% Surge in New Orders, Green Ship Orders up 80%

China's first intelligent production line for deepwater oil and gas equipment process piping starts up. Process piping for oil, water, etc.

Leica swaps Japan for China as it moves to joint in-house sensor development with Changchun-based Gpixel.

China pushes for 70% homegrown silicon wafer use as domestic firms ramp up 12-inch production.

Environment & Society

Beijingers aged 20-29 made up 21.3% of the population in 2015. It’s 11.4% today.

China orders 50,000 tones of deforestation-free Brazilian beef.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

China cuts oil imports 25% from pre-Iran war levels, stabilizing global prices—while USA draws down reserves to stabilize domestic prices.

“Europe could ground more than half of all Chinese commercial planes by withholding software updates for China’s Airbus fleet”. Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Defense

The new AUS70-DP230 mobile drone hunter detects, identifies, and neutralizes threats over military bases, airports, borders, oil fields, VIP events, and critical infrastructure. Its radar locks onto drones at 5+ km with visual detection out to 4 km and infrared to 2 km, jams all major drone frequencies from 915 MHz to 5.8 GHz while spoofing GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou signals with 360° coverage, one-button deployment and setup in minutes. It turns billion-dollar drone programs into easy targets for any near-peer conflict.

1989: President Bush’s Secret Letter to Deng Xiaoping

On June 20, 1989, after his attempt to call Deng Xiaoping directly failed, President Bush hand-crafted a letter himself, initiating a secret top-level contact with China as his attempt to preserving the US-China relationship. Deng Xiaoping responded immediately to the letter. Bush later published it in his book All the Best.

The letter is an example of American hypocrisy: Bush replaced the US Ambassador to Beijing with Bush’s CIA protege James Lilley whom he had known since the ‘70s when Bush was Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing (1974–1975, before full diplomatic relations) and Lilley was the CIA station chief. Bush usually read Lilley’s reports from Beijing—especially graphic accounts during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown directly.

For a full account of what really happened in 1989, read Tianananmen Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four and Beijing’s Tiananmen Post-Mortem.

—o0o—

His Excellency Deng Xiaoping
People’s Republic of China
Beijing

June 20, 1989

Dear Chairman Deng: [Deng was Chairman of the Military Commission only].

I write this letter with a heavy heart. I wish there were some way to discuss this matter in person, but regrettably that is not the case. First, I write in a spirit of genuine friendship, this letter coming as I’m sure you know from one who believes with a passion that good relations between the United States and China are in the fundamental interests of both countries. I have felt that way for many years. I feel more strongly that way today, in spite of the difficult circumstances.

Secondly, I write as one who has great respect for what you personally have done for the people of China and to help your great country move forward. There is enormous irony in the fact that you who yourself have suffered several reversals in your quest to bring reform and openness to China are now facing a situation fraught with so much anxiety.

I recall your telling me the last time we met that you were in essence phasing out of the day-to-day management of your great country. But I also recall your unforgettable words about the need for good relations with the West, your concerns about “encirclement” and those who had done great harm to China, and your committment to keeping China moving forward. By writing you I am not trying to bypass any individual leader of China. I am simply writing as a friend, a genuine “lao pengyou.”

It is with this in mind that I write you asking for your help in preserving this relationship that we both think is very important. I have tried very hard not to inject myself into China’s internal affairs. I have tried very hard not to appear to dictating in any way to China about how it should manage its internal crisis. I am respectful of the differences in our two societies and in our two systems.

I have great reverence for Chinese history, culture and tradition. You have given much to the development of world civilization. But I ask you as well to remember the principles on which my young country was founded. It is not a reaction of arrogance or of a desire to force others to our beliefs but of simple faith in the enduring value of those principles and their universal applicability.

And that leads directly to the fundamental problem. The early days of the student demonstration, and indeed, the early treatment of the students by the Chinese Army, captured the imagination of the entire world. The wonder of TV brought the details of the events in Tiananmen Square into the homes of peple not just in “Western” countries but world-wide. The early tolerance that was shown, the restraint and the generous handling of the demonstrations, won world-wide respect for China’s leadership. Thoughtful people all over the world tried to understand and sympathize with the enormous problems being faced by those required to keep order; and, indeed, they saw with admiration the manifestation of policy which reflected the leaders’ words: “The Army loves the people.” The world cheered when Chinese leaders were seen patiently meeting with students, even though there were “sit ins” and even though disorder did interfere with normal functions.

I will leave what followed to the history books, but again, with their own eyes the people of the world saw the turmoil and the bloodshed with which the demonstrations were ended. [No such footage existed or exists today—Ed.]. AlVarious countries reacted in various ways. Based on the principles I have described above, the actions that I took as President of the United States could not be avoided. As you know, the clamor for stronger action remains intense. I have resisted that clamor, making clear that I did not want to see destroyed this relationship that you and I have worked so hard to build. I explained to the American people that I did not want to unfairly burden the Chinese people through economic sanctions.

There is also the matter of Fang Lizhi. The minute I heard Fang was in our Embassay, I knew there would be a high-profile wedge driven between us. Fang was not encouraged to come to our Embassay, but under our widely-accepted interpretation of international law we could not refuse him admittance.

In today’s climate I know this matter is of grave importance to you and I know it presents you with an enormous problem; a problem that adversely affects my determination and, hopefully, yours to get our relationship back on track.

We cannot now put Fang out of the Embassay without some assurance that he will not be in physical danger. Similar cases elsewhere in the world have been resolved over long periods of time or through the government quietly permitting departure through expulsion. I simply want to assure you that we want this difficult matter resolved in a way which is satisfactory to you and does not violate our commitment to our basic principles. When there are difficulties between friends, as now, we must find a way to talk them out.

Your able Ambassador here represents your country firmly and faithfully. I feel that Jim Lilley does the same for us; but if there is some special channel that you would favor, please let me know.

I have thought of asking you to receive a special emissary who could speak with total candor to you representing my heartfelt convictions on these matters. If you feel such an emissary could be helpful, please let me know and we will work cooperatively to see that his mission is kept in total confidence. I have insisted that all departments of the US government be guided in their statements and actions from my guidance in the White House. Sometimes in an open system such as ours it is impossible to control all leaks; but on this particular letter there are no copies, not one, outside of my own personal file....

I send you this letter with great respect and deep concern. We must not let this important relationship suffer further. Please help me keep it strong. Any statement that could be made from China that drew from earlier statements about peacefully resolving further disputes with protesters would be very well received here. Any clemency that could be shown the student demonstrators would be applauded worldwide. We must not let the aftermath of the tragic recent events undermine a vital relationship patiently built up over the past seventeen years. I would, of course, welcome a personal reply to this letter. This matter is too important to be left to our bureaucracies.

As I said above, I write with a heavy heart; but I also write with a frankness reserved for respected friends.

Sincerely,

George Bush

Further Reading

Here Comes China

Beijing's Tiananmen Post-Mortem. Part One.

Excerpted From Chen Xitong’s Report to the Central Committee, July 2, 1989…

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2 years ago · 14 likes · 1 comment · Godfree Roberts

Here Comes China

Snipers in the US Embassy, Beijing.

In a previous three-part post, we saw that inflation, not ideology, triggered the Tiananmen demonstrations, and George Soros, the CIA and MI6 seized the moment to stage their unsuccessful Color Revolution. The demonstrations, which capped Deng Xiaoping’s disastrous decade, might have led to serious unrest were it not for Maos’ ten-year Cultural Revolution, during which everyone studied handling…

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2 years ago · 23 likes · 5 comments · Godfree Roberts

China is again the richest country on earth and its currency again so sought-after that, to compete, the US Treasury must pay twice the interest of RMB bonds. The PRC’s money-management is the fruit of thousands of years of experimentation by sophisticated officials, as these excerpts demonstrate.

Paper Currency

In modern monetary theory, everything that performs the functions of money is money. According to this definition, not only cash currency “the circulating treasure”—but also the various sorts of paper money in widespread use were money, even though many Song scholars refused to accept this reality.

Song paper money was the first viable paper currency system used in a national economy in world history, though not a single authentic specimen is known to exist today. The Mongols adopted paper money almost two decades before they defeated the Song. The “silk notes” they issued in i260, which were backed by silk yarn, reached Persia in 1294 and Korea in 1296. The Japanese created their own paper currency in 1334, and the Vietnamese adopted paper in 1396.

In Western countries, paper money was a rather late arrival. It started in Sweden in 1661 and was adopted in America in 1690, France in 1720, Russia in 1768, England in 1797, and Germany in 1806. Paper currency came into use in Song times because several preconditions were met.

1. The Song’s flourishing national economy created a high demand for iron and copper in the production of all sorts of articles, and the introduction of paper money helped to free up these metals for use in manufacturing.

2. The technology for printing paper notes became so advanced that currency could be printed in good quality (mak-ing counterfeiting difficult) and in high numbers.

3. Song scholars who paid attention to the monetary system had a very good understanding of money as a means of payment and exchange, not as a i value in its own right, in the way that silver or gold was valuable.

As Ye Shi (1150—I223 ) explained, “Money, one of those magic things created by man, is useful to its creator only when it is in constant circulation; it loses the meaning of its existence when it is taken away from the market and locked up in an iron-chest.”’ In his view, ease of circulation was the very function of currency, and paper money fulfilled this function better than coins.

But perhaps the most critical factor in the growth of paper currency had to do with the Song’s foreign policy. The government constantly feared that bronze coins, with their high percentage of copper and a face value worth less than the actual metal they were made of would be taken out of circulation, particularly by the Song’s northern and western neigh-bors. The resulting shortage of cash would damage the national economy

Paper money

While strengthening alien regimes, the stability of the Liao dynasty’s economy in particular depended heavily on cash imports from the Song. To keep control of metals and safeguard the stability of its currency, the Song government established segregated currency zones in the border regions. In the 1040s iron cash was extended to all the frontier provinces bordering the Liao and Xi Xia dynasties and copper cash was prohibited. In the middle of the twelfth century the Jin also tried to safeguard their own currency system by prohibiting the use of copper cash in border provinces, especially in the affluent Huainan region.

Low-value currency zones on both sides of the border not only made the lives of commoners in these regions more difficult but also complicated all nationwide commercial activities and tax administration.

The first promissory note

The earliest privately issued “order to pay,” promissory note or exchange bill, was issued in 994 AD . This note or ‘bill’ was a privately agreed-upon deed, and the earliest mention of it was in the context of the uprising of Li Shun, the leader of a short-lived insurrection of craftsmen, artisans, and farmers in Sichuan province.

These insurgents objected to the heavy iron coins that had replaced the small copper coins in use for thirty years. In response to this unrest and after further administrative irregularities, the government established a Bureau for Exchange Bills in 1023 in modern Chengdu and introduced the official exchange bill—a clever, highly efficient, profitable, and comfortable invention for buying and selling goods and services.

This piece of printed paper entitled its holder to receive the amount of cash strings printed on the surface of the exchange bill when he presented it at one of the bureaus. Originally, one exchange bill was one string’s worth of cash and was valid for a circulation period of three years. Later, the printed exchange value could vary between one and ten strings, and exchange rates of 770 coins and less per string became common.

For merchants who needed a large amount of cash to purchase commodities, paper bills immensely facilitated the transfer of funds from one place to another. Nobody had to carry bulky, heavy iron coins over dangerous mountain paths. Very soon the new exchange medium found its way into regions of the north, as merchants and officials saw its value in solving a number of problems related to commodity transfer and payment.Paper money was made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree, which is why it was also called mulberry paper money.

The government manufactured, issued, and controlled paper notes, starting with the raw material and continuing through distribution. Usually silk or other fibers were mixed in to make counterfeiting as difficult as possible. Both the Northern and Southern notes had elaborate and difficult-to-copy patterns and usually bore technical data (date and series of issue, serial number, exchange value in strings, time limit of circulation, seal stamps, and so on) verifying the genuineness of the printed paper.

Counterfeiting

The punishment for counterfeiting bills was usually printed on the note: “By imperial decree: Criminals who counterfeit paper money are to be punished by beheading. The reward [for informers] shall be 1,000 guan.” The government-run Chengdu printing house was established in 1068, and in the late twelfth century the treasury near Hangzhou employed 204 craftsmen. The size of a single note may have measured 11 by 19 centimeters. Exchange bills—and, later, money vouchers—were multicolor prints using multiple impressions.

For better control of use and distribution, the government set up restrictions and conditions for the issuance and circulation of exchange bills. From 1023 until 1107 the Song government circulated forty-three issues, each limited to a total worth of 1,256,340 strings per circulation period (which was three years until 1069). A liquidity backing of 360,000 strings (or 28 percent) per circulation period helped to avoid insolvency. After three years the old exchange bills had to be replaced by new ones or exchanged for cash. A handling fee of 30 coins was charged for each string paid out and each order renewal.

Fractional Reserves & Fiat Money

Liquidity backing was decisive in the early success and the later failure of paper currency. Toward the end of the eleventh century some scholars insisted on 100 percent liquidity backing, while others erroneously thought that the convertibility problem could be solved by introducing a fixed rate of exchange from paper to cash and vice versa. Some scholars insisted that the government should maintain a cash reserve as liquidity backing. Emperor Shenzong thought liquidity backing for exchange bills was unnecessary, because income and expenditures would cause the people to trust the value of money. He held the strikingly modern opinion that the economic power of a national economy was sufficient backing for paper currency.

His advisers did not agree.In 1071, after some of Wang Anshi’s fiscal reforms were put into practice, the demand for exchange bills doubled. Six-year circulation was introduced shortly thereafter, and in 1093 the whole system started to run out of control when exchange bills equal to 13.3 million strings of cash were issued. In 1105 a reform, effective with the forty-fourth circulation, was issued. In 1107, the exchange bill was replaced with the money voucher. The bureaus were renamed accordingly.At the end of the Northern Song in 1127, the total number of old exchange bills in circulation may have amounted to about 70 million strings. When the Song Chinese began their southward migration, the old credit line no longer satisfied demand.

The total worth of money vouchers had to be increased by 30 percent to 1,886,340 strings of cash, and in 1141 the sixtieth issue climbed to an inflationary 5,886,340 strings. In 1145, after the Song had come to an agreement with the Jin and political security at the northern border eased the strain on state finances, the government reduced the issue of money vouchers to the old figure of 1127.

It would not last long.

The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China, by Dieter Kuhn.

Reading

Here Comes China

mBridge Over Toxic Dollars?

History…

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3 years ago · 15 likes · Godfree Roberts

The CIA programs in Tibet, which were very effective in destabilizing it, did not succeed in Xinjiang. There were similar efforts made with the Uyghurs during the Cold War that never really got off the ground. In both cases you had religion waved as a banner in support of a desire for independence or autonomy which is, of course, is anathema to any State. US Ambassador Chas. H. Freeman, Director for Chinese Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 1979-1981. 8/31/18

In 1984, Beijing’s proposed continental land bridge from Xinjiang to Eurasia gave global strategic significance to the distant, rural province. But when construction of the first rail line to Kashi, co-terminus in Pakistan of the Karakoram Highway, Washington sprang into action.

The CIA hired terrorists who publicly declared the strategic rail lines were their target. Gulamettin Pahta, US-paid, Arlington-based leader of the ‘Uighur Liberation Front’, did not mince words. “The Continental Bridge is a Chinese imperialist plot that must be blocked.. They are building railroads, but the people are opposing the railroad, and will destroy the railroad. This is just like the American movies on the history of California. What the Indians did, in fighting the railroads, is what we will do. The same thing is happening. Every train coming into eastern Turkestan is bringing in Chinese. This must be stopped”. — Xinjiang in 1997.

Allegations of human rights abuses soon followed, alarming the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation:

The Commission was briefed on the human rights situation of Uyghur Muslims in China, which shows rising discrimination on the basis of their religion by subjecting them to involuntary conversions in detention camps where they were forced to follow and adopt cultural values and practices contrary to their religious beliefs. The OIC Islamophobia Observatory informed IPHRC that Chinese authorities call these camps as re-education centers to combat violence and extremist ideologies. According to the OIC Islamophobia Observatory, the newly introduced Chinese law namely the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region DeRadicalization Regulations (in October 2018), was excessive in nature as virtually any activity could fall within the scope of its provisions and enables the authorities to justify the presence of detention/re-education camps.

The Commission expressed concern on these disturbing reports on the treatment of Uyghur Muslims and expressed hope that China, which has excellent bilateral relations with most OIC countries as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, would do its best to address the legitimate concerns of Muslims around the world. The Commission also recalled that the Constitution of China provides clear and full guarantees for the right to freedom of religion and belief, which makes it obligatory on its authorities to ensure the exercise of these rights

by all its nationals. The Commission further emphasized the importance of ensuring promotion and protection of human rights and due process guarantees while countering terrorism — Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, December 2018.

China promptly invited the OIC to observe the Xinjiang situation themselves and, in March 2019, after the inspection, the OIC reported:

The Council welcomes the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat’s delegation upon invitation from the People’s Republic of China; commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People’s Republic of China.” Report, Item 20.

James Wood’s Update

Sustained Terrorist Violence

For years, Western media pushed a simple story about Xinjiang: China is committing genocide. That story collapses once you look at the facts.

From the 1990s through to the mid-2010s, Xinjiang was hit by sustained terrorist violence: bombings, mass stabbings, police assassinations, attacks on civilians, mosques and markets. This wasn’t abstract. People were being murdered in public spaces. Uyghurs, Han Chinese, police officers, elderly people, children — all were victims.Groups linked to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM/TIP), listed by the UN Security Council as a terrorist organisation, openly pushed separatism and violent jihad. By 2013–2014, attacks had escalated into mass-casualty incidents that shocked the entire country.

Prevention, The First Strategy

China looked at that situation and reached a blunt conclusion: Reactive counter-terrorism doesn’t work. Arresting people after civilians are already dead doesn’t prevent the next attack. So Beijing shifted to a prevention-first model. Cells were dismantled. Weapons caches were seized. Recruitment networks were shut down. Extremist propaganda was criminalised. Security was saturated across public spaces. And yes, vocational and deradicalisation centres were established for people assessed as being on the path toward radicalisation.The goal wasn’t subtle and it wasn’t liberal. It was simple: Stop the violence before it happens.

Results: Terrorism’s Collapse

Now look at the outcome. From the late 2010s onward, large-scale terrorist attacks in Xinjiang collapsed to near zero. The knife attacks, bombings and mass-casualty incidents that had plagued the region for years disappeared. Police deaths dropped sharply. Markets, transport hubs and daily life normalised. Even critics and UN reporting don’t dispute this basic fact: the wave of terrorism ended.

Western vs. China’s Counter-Terrorism

Compare that with the West. In the US and Europe, terrorism is managed almost entirely after the fact — intelligence failures, attacks, emergency response, long prison sentences. Radicalised individuals cycle through courts and prisons with minimal ideological disengagement. The result? Repeated attacks, copycats, prison radicalisation and endless “lone wolf” incidents. France, the UK, Belgium, the US — none can claim they’ve solved terrorism.China chose a different path. Instead of letting radicalised individuals drift toward violence or warehousing them indefinitely in prisons, China attempted forced disengagement and reintegration.

The Reality of ‘Re-Education’ Centres

The centres, lazily branded “concentration camps” in Western discourse, were not death camps, not extermination sites and not designed for mass killing. They were coercive, yes, but they focused on language, law, job skills and breaking violent ideological conditioning.The logic was blunt but pragmatic: It’s better to redirect someone than to let them become a murderer, or die as one.

The Genocide Claim Falls Apart

There is no evidence of mass killing. No mass graves. No extermination infrastructure. Even the UN’s own 2022 human rights assessment did not label the situation genocide. It raised serious concerns, but genocide was not its conclusion. Even census data shows Xinjiang’s population grew between 2010 and 2020 and the Uyghur population increased over that same period. That alone destroys claims of extermination. Critics then pivot to falling birth rates in some Uyghur-majority areas after 2017 — a real statistic — but birth-rate decline is not population destruction and it is not genocide.

The Inconvenient Truth

What’s really happening is far less dramatic and far more inconvenient: China prioritised certainty over liberal risk, prevention over reaction, and rehabilitation over endless punishment. The system was heavy-handed, but it achieved something Western counter-terror models repeatedly fail to do: It stopped mass terrorist violence.Re-educating and reintegrating people, even coercively, is fundamentally different from bombing countries, exporting wars, or cycling radicals through prisons until the next attack. Teaching skills and enforcing civic participation is not the same thing as destroying a people.You can debate proportionality. You can debate rights. But you cannot honestly claim China chose chaos, extermination, or collapse.

Conclusion

The West didn’t lose the Xinjiang narrative because China “hid the truth.” It lost because the violence stopped — and that outcome doesn’t fit the narrative.
Note: Some cases and footage are released to the public for the very first time and contains footage which some viewers may find disturbing.

Videos

Fighting terrorism in Xinjiang (Viewer discretion advised).

2: ETIM and terrorism in Xinjiang

3: Memories of fighting terrorism in Xinjiang:

4: War in the shadows: Challenges of fighting terrorism in Xinjiang

5: Darkness over Urumqi

James Wood, @commiepommie, is a British-Australian living in China, is a geopolitical analyst, and author of China in Focus.

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Mao: How to give “tit for tat” depends on the situation. Sometimes, not going to negotiations is tit-for-tat; and sometimes, going to negotiations is also tit-for-tat. We were right not to go before, and also right to go this time; in both cases we have given tit for tat. We did well to go this time, for we exploded the rumour spread by the Kuomintang that the Communist Party did not want peace and unity. They sent three successive telegrams to invite us, and we went. But they were totally unprepared, and we had to make all the proposals. As a result of the negotiations, the Kuomintang has accepted the general policy of peace and unity. That’s fine. If the Kuomintang launches civil war again, it will put itself in the wrong in the eyes of the whole nation and the whole world, and we shall have all the more reason to smash its attacks by a war of self-defence…

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25 days ago · 13 likes · 2 comments · Godfree Roberts

Defense

Y-20B’s WS-20 turbofan engines can haul 66 tons further and cheaper than the Y-20. The largest military transport in production includes the YY-20 tanker and KJ-3000 AWACS.

China’s first naval hypersonic anti-ship missile, the YJ-20, enters mass production. One hit from the Mach 6—10, 1,000–2,000 km range, 1000 lb. payload can sink an aircraft carrier.

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Mao: How to give “tit for tat” depends on the situation. Sometimes, not going to negotiations is tit-for-tat; and sometimes, going to negotiations is also tit-for-tat. We were right not to go before, and also right to go this time; in both cases we have given tit for tat. We did well to go this time, for we exploded the rumour spread by the Kuomintang that the Communist Party did not want peace and unity. They sent three successive telegrams to invite us, and we went. But they were totally unprepared, and we had to make all the proposals. As a result of the negotiations, the Kuomintang has accepted the general policy of peace and unity. That’s fine. If the Kuomintang launches civil war again, it will put itself in the wrong in the eyes of the whole nation and the whole world, and we shall have all the more reason to smash its attacks by a war of self-defence.

Now that the “October 10th Agreement” has been concluded, our task is to uphold the agreement, to demand that the Kuomintang honour it and to continue to strive for peace. If they fight, we will wipe them out completely. This is the way things are: if they attack and we wipe them out, they will have that satisfaction; wipe out some, some satisfaction; wipe out more, more satisfaction; wipe out the whole lot, complete satisfaction. China’s problems are complicated, and our brains must also be a little complicated. If they start fighting, we fight back, fight to win peace. Peace will not come unless we strike hard blows at the reactionaries who dare to attack the Liberated Areas.

Some comrades have asked why we should concede eight Liberated Areas. It is a great pity to concede these eight areas, but it is better to do so. Why is it a pity? Because these Liberated Areas have been created and arduously built up by the people, with sweat and blood. Therefore, we must explain matters clearly to the people and make appropriate arrangements in the areas we are going to concede. Why should we concede those areas? Because otherwise the Kuomintang will not feel easy. They are going back to Nanking, but some Liberated Areas in the south are right by their beds or in their corridor. So long as we are there, they will not be able to sleep easily and will therefore fight for those places at all costs.

Our concession on this point will help frustrate the Kuomintang’s plot for civil war and win us the sympathy of the numerous middle elements at home and abroad. All the means of propaganda in China, except the Hsinhua News Agency, are now controlled by the Kuomintang. They are all rumour factories. Concerning the current negotiations, they have spread the rumour that the Communist Party just wants territory and will make no concessions. Our policy is to protect the fundamental interests of the people. Subject to the principle of not damaging the fundamental interests of the people, it is permissible to make certain concessions in exchange for peace and democracy, which the people of the whole country need. In our past dealings with Chiang Kai-shek we also made concessions, and even larger ones. In 1937, to bring about the nation-wide War of Resistance, we voluntarily dropped the name, “Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolutionary Government”, changed the name of our Red Army to “National Revolutionary Army” and altered our policy of confiscating the land of the landlords to one of reducing rent and interest.

This time, by conceding certain areas in the south, we have completely exploded the Kuomintang’s rumours before the people of all China and the whole world. It is the same with the problem of armed forces. Kuomintang propaganda has been saying that the Communist Party is just scrambling for guns. But we have said we are ready to make concessions. First, we proposed cutting our present armed strength to 48 divisions. As the Kuomintang has 263 divisions, this means our strength would be about a sixth of the total. Later, we proposed a further reduction to 43 divisions, about a seventh of the total. The Kuomintang then said they would reduce to 120 divisions. We said we would reduce by the same proportion to 24 or even 20 divisions, which would still be only a seventh of the total. In the Kuomintang army the proportion of officers as compared to soldiers is unduly large and the complement of a division is under 6,000. By their standard, we could form 200 divisions out of our 1,200,000 men. But we are not going to do so. Therefore the Kuomintang can say nothing more and all their rumours are bankrupt. Does this mean that we are going to hand over our guns to the Kuomintang? Not that either. If we hand over our guns, won’t the Kuomintang have too many? The arms of the people, every gun and every bullet, must all be kept, must not be handed over.

The above is what I want to say to the comrades about the present situation. Its development shows many contradictions. In the negotiations between the Kuomintang and our Party, why is there agreement on some questions and not on others? Why does the “Summary of Conversations” speak of peace and unity, while fighting is actually going on? Some comrades just can’t understand such contradictions. What I have said is meant to answer these questions. Some comrades can’t understand why we should be willing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek, who has always been anti-Communist and against the people. Was our Party right or wrong in deciding at its Seventh Congress that we were willing to negotiate with the Kuomintang, provided they changed their policy? It was absolutely right. The Chinese revolution is a long one and victory can only be won step by step. China’s future depends on our exertions. The situation will remain in flux for six months or so. We must redouble our efforts to make it develop in a direction favourable to the people of the whole country. Mao Zedong, On the Chungking Negotiations. October 17, 1945.

Trump understudied the notorious Roy Cohn from whom he learned Three Rules of Winning:

• Attack, attack, attack

• Always take the offensive. Never play defense. Strike first and hardest.

• Admit nothing. Deny everything, deflect, and counter-accuse.

• No matter what happens, claim victory.

President Xi studied under his father whom Mao named the greatest negotiator in Chinese history.

• Trump’s meeting with Xi in Busan last October was the first time since 1989 the

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The waiting seemed endless, but there was a good-humoured patience which a Chinese crowd seems to be able to maintain without effort. There was an instant alertness, however, when a wave of excitement rippled down the crowd from the far end of the street. A few moments later the banners came in sight. The scene had been dull; black hair, blue clothes, generally dusty and tattered after long years of misery, grey brick walls above open shops, even the gold lettering of the black swinging signs were dulled and unwashed; but all this was suddenly brightened, lit as with the first rays of the sun.

The young were all singing at once—‘there is red in the East’—as the first of the countless red banners rounded the corner.There is little more beautiful, nothing more evocative, than hosts of red silken banners carried in a fluttering sea, high overhead. The golden stars sparkled; there was a great surge of feeling as the flags appeared and then passed us by.

Massive pictures held aloft were then carried past—the bearded German philosophers whose works were beyond us, Marx himself, before and behind them, and great hosts of leaders from every Communist land. But largest, held much the highest, was the father figure of all China, his mole, the seal of heaven’s approval, prominent on his benign face. With him was Chu Teh, the victorious fighter, head of the armies. Stalin and Lenin were there, and then a multitude of smaller pictures of political leaders, almost all of them western, and all very solemn.

Then came the dancers

Performing the yang go, those mythical traditional farmers’ dances which had truly become China’s own. There were troupes who accompanied the armies; but there were also local ones—most perfect of all the Birds of Spring and other young men and women who had learnt with precision on my lawn at Jen Dah. They were now gorgeously dressed in satin which gleamed bright blue and red, with white sashes and turbans; they beat cymbal and drum as they danced on the road.

The military section, in seemingly endless procession, was broken at times by more dancers who brought relief to the watching crowds. Repeated clusters of red banners rested the eyes, wearied from watching men and machines. We had expected to see Russian guns and tanks, and Russian advisers; but they were not there. Some of the guns were certainly German, won from Japan, but nearly all the equipment, guns, jeeps, rifles and tanks, were from the United States of America, either won fairly in battle, or else bought from Kuomintang leaders who valued the cash for personal reasons rather than the weapons they had no will to handle. There is much to be said in any civil war for both sides using guns and rifles of the same make.

There were trucks carrying bands, playing the national anthem, ‘Chi lai, Arise,’ which the young people knew and lustily sang, although until now forbidden. Mules carried machine-guns, trucks dragged the field-guns. There were stretcher bearers and Red Cross contingents, but mostly truck after truck of men and women in their sandy uniforms, bright stars on caps.

When the procession was over, the city had changed

Shops were open, every window flung wide, everywhere red flags were hanging, some hurriedly made, the five yellow stars made of paper, stuck with paste, some on cotton, some on silk. Spaces were cleared in the streets, as with the beating of drums and the rhythmic clash of cymbals, the yang go was danced up and down. The soldiers came to join in the revels; they were well fed and healthy, with clear, eager faces, so different from the ill-fed, dishevelled, hardly-ever-paid soldiers the people had known.

Many of the older people were quiet spectators, they had seen changes so often in their lives; while the rich, apprehensive about their future, doubtless remained behind doors.It was the day of young China, they were all out rejoicing: laughing, hand clapping, singing new songs. Liberation had come.

Out of the city at Jen Dah, the students were also dancing. A huge bonfire was lighted; and round it, in great circles, arms clasped, singing unity is strength, they all were fused in one great fellowship. The unbroken circles widened and then drew in, then out and in, again and yet again. It seemed as though the flames must scorch them.

That evening the newspapers appeared in new form. The Liberation Daily and the Duliang People’s News proclaimed that the era of liberation had commenced. The walls were suddenly bright with posters picturing the new freedom, and showing the shackles being cut from the feet of the poor and the oppressed.

They take babies and kill them

Liberation had come; but, while youth rejoiced, many of their elders secretly wondered what would follow when the singing had ended. High hopes in China had frequently been quickly dispelled and promises proved vain. My helper Mrs Fu, no longer to be thought of as a servant, sought me out in the quiet of my study. ‘You will know as you are a foreigner,’ she said in a whisper, so low I could hardly hear the name—‘speak although “they” ’—she would not mention the name—‘speak such good words and seem so friendly, they are not really good but are evil. They take babies and kill them. The woman at the Jen Dah main gate is frightened about hers, and wants to know if you will tell her what she should do.’ — I Stayed in China. William G. Sewell. A.S. Barnes Pub, NY 1966.

Wealth inequality in modern societies stems less from broad societal gaps and more from a fundamental split between renters and capitalists. As one analysis notes, the world of homeowners is relatively equal and clusters near overall societal means. Inequality arises primarily from differences between those who rent and those who own productive capital, a pattern that appears clearly in wealth distribution data.

China’s wealth Gini coefficient is 0.547 and falling, France’s is 0.730, and America’s is 0.801 and rising. Higher Gini values indicate greater inequality, with 0 representing perfect equality and values near 1 showing a tiny minority holding nearly all wealth while others have almost none.

Globally, the top 10% owns 71% of world wealth, yielding an estimated Gini of 0.804—higher than for income or consumption. As economist Gabriel Zucman observed, this reflects stark concentration at the top. In the United States, the top 1% of households now controls more than half of equity in public and private companies, fueled by strong stock market returns over the past decade. The richest Americans h0ld $35.4 trillion in assets, close to the $36.9 trillion held by the middle and upper-middle classes in the 50th-90th percentile. The top group’s median net worth was $17.6 million in 2019. The next 9% (rich couples) held $2.3 million and the upper-middle segment $796,000.

The bottom 80% are worth a net $67,000. Today, 68% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck amid a persistent cost-of-living crisis. Median retirement savings for working-age adults (21–64) is $955 according to 2026 U.S. Census data. That means half of them have less than $955 and many have zero.

Urban China, by contrast, shows a median net worth around $200,000 (higher in top cities like Shanghai), above Chicago’s median of $93,000 (Federal Reserve) and Berlin’s roughly $49,000 (Bundesbank).

China’s lower wealth Gini reflects broader homeownership, different capital distribution patterns and much higher cash savings. Retirement realities add nuance.

China is raising retirement ages—for males born December 1970, to 61.5 years; for females, 55.25.

With life expectancy near 79 and average annual working hours 2,400, Chinese workers accumulate 4,600 hours per year of retirement. Danes, with life expectancy of 81.5, who work 1,600 hours yearly—need 6,500 hours for each year of retirement! This illustrates how ownership of assets, rather than labor income alone, drives wealth gaps. Capitalists capturing equity gains pull ahead, while renters and those with minimal savings lag.

While home ownership appears to compress inequality, the renter-capitalist divide widens it. As societies grapple with these dynamics, policies addressing capital access and retirement security may prove more decisive than traditional income redistribution alone—and closer to Chinese working people.

With a total workforce of 402 million, China’s labor landscape is vast, youthful (average age 38) and rapidly evolving. 84 million are in new forms of employment (platform, gig, flexible), 300 million are rural migrants, 52% still hold rural hukou and 96% of whom own homes. On average, they’ve received the equivalent of an American junior college degree (70% of truck drivers reached junior high school, 38% of ride-hailing drivers hold college degrees). 83% work in manufacturing and construction, 85% have high school education or above, and 36% hold bachelor’s degrees.

Workers and The Party

Over one-third, 36% of workers, are Party or Youth Party members — a far higher rate of political engagement than we see in Western labor forces — and are increasingly vocal about their quality of life: 70% want to spend more time with family during breaks, 30% want to care for family while still working, and 20% simply want more leisure time. Asked what they want from their union branches drew these unsurprising responses:

• Increased Wages (78%)

• Upskilling (70%)

• Participation in management (32%)

What About American Workers?

American workers’ real wages/purchasing power is little altered since 1975, when 25% of private sector workers were unionized. Today it’s 6% — giving the vast majority of them no collective bargaining power. Many rely on individual negotiation in a labor market where employers hold most of the cards. Their low levels of political engagement is the result of decades of US government policy.

The biggest difference between the two labor forces is that Chinese demands are funneled through a massive, nationwide union structure that has the ear of both companies and the government. Cai Qi, the fifth-ranking member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, Director of the CCP General Office and Xi Jinping’s de facto chief of staff is the union’s man. Perhaps that’s why so many are Party or Youth League members: they have a direct line to the political system that simply does not exist for non-unionized American workers, who often feel completely disconnected from both major parties.

The Bottom Line

The ACFTU survey reveals a Chinese working class that is:

• Younger and better educated than many outsiders assume

• Actively demanding higher wages and skills upgrading

• Increasingly focused on quality of life and work-life balance

• Operating within a union structure that, while different from Western models, delivers measurable pressure for improvement

By comparison, the average non-unionized American worker faces greater precarity, little institutional representation, and a labor movement in long-term decline. China’s workers are not passive. They are organized, vocal about their needs, and operating in a system that — however imperfect — treats labor as a strategic national priority rather than a cost to be minimized. The data suggests that, on several key metrics, China’s unionized workforce enjoys structural advantages that most American workers can only dream of:

Divers glide effortlessly as robotic exoskeleton slashes oxygen use 40%. It mirrors diver’s motion in real time, reduce fatigue, extends time underwater.

Five million 5G base stations and gigabit optical network access in every county, in all administrative villages, and 95% have 5G.

China-Laos 500-kV AC power interconnection transfers of 3B kWh of clean electricity, 30 times the capacity of previous lines.

Was China’s First Nuclear Bomb Calculated with an Abacus?

Economy & Trade

China exported 68 GW of solar in March, 50% more than the August 2025 record. That’s equal to Spain’s entire installed solar capacity.

Iran war’s unlikely winner: China’s shipyards.

The service sector employs 50% of China’s workforce. Its value-added output accounted for 61.7% of GDP, up 0.4 percentage points YoY.

Real estate recovery broadens, salaries bounce back viewings and transactions well above 2025. Salaries rose 5.7% YoY, the most since 2022.

China will hit EU firms with reciprocal measures if the bloc targets Chinese firms as planned under its proposed cybersecurity regulations, Beijing has warned.

Portugal’s First Offshore Yuan Bond by Eurozone Sovereign. Cheaper, encourages other eurozone countries to follow, accelerating de-dollarization trend.

Ford, Geely Held Talks About Bringing Chinese Tech to America. They discussed a tie-up in Europe, but U.S. collaboration would be politically fraught

Goldman Sachs leads record renminbi borrowing by US banks.

Society & Environment

36-year-old left the U.S. for China—now pays $1,000 rent, $100 for groceries for family of 4: “It’s my ‘version of the American Dream”.

The death rates for lung and nasopharyngeal cancers fall 2% annually: 40% of cancers can be prevented through primary prevention measures.

Governance

State Grid buys 8,500 embodied robots for $1B: 5,000 inspection quadrupeds for transmission lines/substtions. 500 humanoids for live electrical work. 3,000 dual-arm for equipment operation and fault handling. Each saves $100,000 pa in labor cost, improves inspection efficiency 500%.

China’s CO2 emissions declined last year, while India’s did not increase, reports the International Energy Agency.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

Five‑Year Plans consistently single out energy reserves, strategic metals, and grain/food security (including fertilizers) as state responsibilities. The same structure is visible in the energy sector.

4 Billion KW of installed power capacity = 30% of global total, 3X US America’s. New-energy spending up 50% YoY = 33% of large-scale industrial power output.

Industrial Value Added Grows 6.1% in Q1 as Robot and Integrated-Circuit Output Surges on Upgrading Push

Seven EU companies on export control list for arms sales to Taiwan or collusion with Taiwanese authorities. The measures only target dual-use items.

US Treasury sanctions China’s Hengli refinery + 40 shipping companies.

Emiratis told Treasury officials they may have to use Chinese yuan instead of USD$ for its oil sales.

Social Credit Scores At Long Last? Plan for improving the Comprehensive Enterprise Credit Status Assessment System.

Dr. Liu says armed men roam Kabul’s streets, beggars are everywhere, women have vanished from universities and workplaces and few Chinese nationals remain.

Defense

Type 076 drone aircraft carrier Sichuan entered service last week, in its first ever cross-regional training mission in the South China Sea.

Truck-mounted drone-killer laser hits targets at 4,500 feet, neutralizes drones in 10 seconds. Each shot is powered by electricity and costs $10, and engages targets approaching from multiple directions at low altitude.

The PLA’s new AI task dispatcher automatically calculates real-time fuel levels for all aircraft in range then generates optimised pairing plans between tankers and fighters based on the fuel levels, airspace capacity and flight duration of each aircraft.

India’s Ambassador to China, K.M Panikkar, led his diplomatic corps in China throughout the Civil War and knew Chiang Kai-shek well. But, until he presented his credentials to the new Government, he had never even seen Mao.

Mao Tse-tung is a little over average height: in fact for a southerner he may be considered a tall man. He is heavily built, with broad shoulders and short but thick neck. The impression which his face conveys is pleasant and benevolent and the look in his eyes is kindly. His forehead is broad and the encroaching baldness makes it even more impressive. The mass of black hair that crowns his head frames the face effectively. His personality is impressive but not intimidating and he has the gift of making people feel at home. There is no cruelty or hardness either in his eyes or in the expression of his mouth. In fact he gave me the impression of a philosophical mind, a little dreamy but absolutely sure of itself.

From his early days in his father’s little farm to his present dazzling eminence the way had been hard and long. In the hills of Ching Kan-shan, resisting the punitive expeditions of Chiang, leading his flock like a new Moses to the promised land in an unparalleled trek across mountains, ridges, and deserts, living in caves in Yenan, fighting the K.M.T., which was determined on annihilating him, organizing guerrillas against the Japanese, and finally planning the great war of reconquest which gave to him mastery over the whole of China, from Manchuria to the borders of India and Indo-China, over a territory such as no Chinese ruler since Kangsi had controlled, Mao Tse-tung in his epic life must have experienced many hardships and endured tremendous sufferings. Yet his face showed no signs of bitterness, cruelty or sorrow.

A sense of history

Mao Tse-tung speaks with a soft voice and his speech is not hurried. He has a sense of history which came out in many ways during our conversation. For example, he wanted to know the relationship of the great Moguls to the Mongols. He also felt deeply as an historical thinker the injustices that European imperialism had inflicted on Asia. It seemed to be his view that Europe had unbalanced the life in Asia, and the work of this generation of liberators was to recover the balance.For one who was nearing sixty and had undergone the troubles he had to go through Mao seemed healthy and vigorous etiquette which governed the audience.

He resided with his wife, a very good-looking woman, reputed to have been a cinema actress, in the Hunting Lodge in the summer hills. The formal ceremony was short and impressive and while I emphasized in my speech how the cause of peace would be strengthened by a policy of firm friendship between India and China, Mao Tse-tung in his turn alluded not only to our common traditions but also to our common struggles to recover our freedom.

After the ceremony was over Mao Tse-tung led me to a small reception room where we talked about India and China for over half an hour. Only Chou En-lai and an interpreter were present, besides ourselves. Mao opened the conversation by saying that in China there was an old belief that if a man lived a good life he would be reborn in India. We talked about Asia in general and about the withdrawal of Europeans from the continent, but he said more than once that as long as European economic power was entrenched in Asia the freedom was not complete. My reply was that the right method of excluding European economic power was by the development of our own resources and that we in India were determined to follow this policy. He also asked me about conditions in Burma and seemed greatly interested when I told him that the Burmese Government was as determined as we were to maintain their full independence. He showed considerable interest in Buddhism and asked what influence it had in India. Another question in which he seemed interested was the nature of our relations with Britain. Mao, in spite of his worries, and being the hardest-working head of a great State, was able to stand it.

To compare Mao with Chiang Kai-shek

To compare Mao with Chiang Kai-shek would be unfair. Chiang is no doubt a forceful personality, a man of determination and character, but he was hard and self-centered, with a streak of cruelty in him. The way he rooted out the family of General Yang for three generations, including the youngest children, for the crime of having detained him in Sian is indicative of his revengeful spirit. Also, it had never been claimed for him that Chiang was a man of culture.

A more profitable comparison would be with Nehru. Both are men of action, but with dreamy, idealistic temperaments. While both may be considered humanists in the broadest sense of the term, Nehru has his roots in Western liberalism which affects even his socialist thinking. Mao Tse-tung, being mostly self-educated, with his economics and history learnt from Marx and Lenin, has perhaps no use for the liberal creed of individual liberty. However, as one bred in the classical literature of China, with an early Buddhist training, it is perhaps fair to add that Mao has something more than the dry theories of Marxism in his mental make-up.

The next few days were taken up by visits to leading Chinese personalities. In turn I called on Chu Teh, Liu Shao-chi, Li Chi-shen, Chang Lan (all Vice-Chairmen), Huang Wen-pai, Kuo Mo-jo, Shen Yen-ping and other ministers. As all these are personalities of some consequence and so little is known outside about them a brief description may be of interest. Among the Vice-Chairmen, Chu Teh takes precedence over everyone else. He along with Mao Tse-tung was responsible for building up the People’s Liberation Army, and for bringing it up to the present state of efficiency: for planning and organizing the great campaigns which destroyed the Kuomintang forces… In Two Chinas: Memoirs of a Diplomat. Allen & Unwin, London. 1955.

• Four humanoid robots completed a full eight-hour live-streamed shift on a real tablet assembly line.

• Historic milestone: humanoid robot developed by Honor completed the 21 km half-marathon in 50 minutes 26 seconds — beating the recent human world record of 57 minutes set by Jacob Kiplimo in Lisbon.

• JD.com’s robot ambulance offers diagnosis, battery replacement, recycling, and maintenance for humanoid and quadruped robots.

• New diamond-copper material lifts data center cooling efficiency 80%.

• A tonne-class eVTOL flew 40 km in 15 minutes, autonomously extinguished a fire and returned, cutting emergency response time by a full hour compared to ground-based efforts.

Economy & Finance

• Exports grew 14.7% year-to-date: semiconductors +77.5%, autos+58.5%, and laptops/tablets (+26.7%). Factory gate prices rose for the first time in three years.

• 1.13 billion passenger trips and 1.28 billion tonnes of freight YTD (+5.5% and +2.2% respectively).

• BYD’s $16,000 Sealion EV, with God’s Eye smart driving and built-in refrigerator is half the Tesla Model 3 price. (

• Tourism grew 9.9% last year—on track to China becoming the world’s top tourism destination.

• Every major Chinese megacity operates a bikeshare system larger than any outside China, with millions of daily rides in Tier-1 cities.

• The overseas-loan leverage ratio for foreign banks in China was raised from 0.5x to 1.5x to better support firms expanding abroad.

• Spain’s National Intelligence Center approved 70 Huawei products, with 19 certified for critical sectors including health, defense, banking, and energy.

Environment & Conservation

• Why China’s Great Green Wall succeeded where most anti-desertification projects fail: breaking the cycle of tree die-off and funding collapse.

Academic & Research

• New Dongbi Index: a multidimensional evaluation framework covering 4,027 medical and 3,064 life-science journals emphasizes citation quality networks and other metrics beyond the traditional Journal Impact Factor, as part of China’s push to strengthen its “academic discourse power.”

Governance & Society

• China’s rail investment reached 2.1% of GDP in 2010 — comparable to Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System. Current spending on solar, wind, batteries, and EV capacity matches the scale of America’s 19th–20th century infrastructure booms.

• Major AI conference boycott highlights US–China divide; Chinese researchers make up 60% of all lead authors at NeurIPS(!)

• China, ACFTU, launch Collective Bargaining Campaign to strengthen worker rights.

Diplomacy & Geopolitics

• China expressed firm opposition to the British government’s exclusion of a Chinese company from offshore wind projects under the pretext of “national security.”

• No Beijing Visit for Trump? Amid ongoing developments in the Middle East, a new embargo on Chinese banks, President Trump has reportedly postponed any planned trip to Beijing and cut its duration from three days to two.

Defense & Security

‘Unaffordable’ $36 million for one loadout (6 missiles) for one F-35 fighter for one sortie. That’s 36% of the aircraft’s price. Every sortie.

As regular readers know, China is advancing—rapidly and simultaneously—on almost every technological frontier and has already surpassed the United States in Medical Science1, a backwater in America where funding, careers and fortunes go to develop pharmaceutical palliatives—while life expectancy continues falling. Ferocious media attacks on surgical/innovative trials failures, plus 1000-page trials applications leave the field open to Chinese scientists. Jacob Stern, an American medical scientist (PhD in protein design) is just back from a trip with VC Sid Sijbrandij. A few excerpts to tempt you to read his entire report:

Last August, Sid Sijbrandij and I traveled to Beijing for an experimental scan to look at a biomarker that’s specifically upregulated in his cancer.2 At that time, the only place we could do this was in China, using a molecule developed by Yang Zhi (杨志)’s group at Beijing Cancer Hospital. So that’s where we went.

We were stunned. The whole experience — from international patient check-in, to preparation of the radiotracer, to injection, to imaging, to discussing the result with the physician, to leaving with a glossy printout of the whole-body scan — took two hours. Even in Germany, where clinics are experienced in using developmental tracers, this process would take most of a day. Beijing broadly and the hospital specifically were surprisingly straightforward to navigate for foreigners such as us who speak no Chinese.

The “investigator-initiated trial” (IIT) is an important fundamental concept to understand. Through IITs, individual physicians at major hospitals in China can propose and run studies for cell and gene therapies under the oversight of local scientific and ethics committees. There’s no need to clear a single, centralized national gate before enrolling patients. Compare that to the United States, where early trials are usually company-driven and require formal approval from a national regulatory body (like an IND filing with the FDA) before anything can begin. The tradeoff is pretty straightforward: the US system emphasizes uniform standards and upfront rigor, while China’s IIT model pushes decision-making closer to the doctor and the patient, making it easier to start trials quickly and iterate as data comes in.

Based on what I heard on the ground, it takes about 6 months to go from a first conversation between a doctor and a patient to that patient getting dosed, and people noted that exciting programs with support from senior investigators can go even faster. This means new therapies can get to patients faster, and companies and physicians start learning from and improving the underlying therapies earlier in their development.

On my trip, I was repeatedly quoted a timeline of 18 months from a company having an idea for a therapy to testing it in a patient. My lived experience from my week on the ground backs up this speed. I experienced a sense of urgency at every level. Not just from start-up companies themselves, but also the ecosystem of third-party vendors that perform services for these companies.

During a visit with a CDMO focused on cell therapy manufacturing in Suzhou, I asked the business development rep giving the presentation about the company’s experience with non-viral gene editing. He picked up his phone. As we were preparing to leave 10 minutes later, the principal scientist responsible for the non-viral editing platform caught us by the door. He answered my questions, and we figured out the next steps to evaluate the suitability of their platform for the non-viral editing approach our collaborator is using.

It is ironic to me that the ‘marketplace of reputation’ that seems to govern China’s IIT ecosystem is more market-oriented than the regulatory apparatus we use to govern early-stage trials in the US. Every system has its strengths and drawbacks, China’s included. The parts I saw up close show how the Chinese ecosystem is leaning into its strengths — velocity of science and engineering, urgency, close-knit relationships within the ecosystem, compassion for patients. I’m hopeful that, as a country, we can reflect on and actively lean into our strengths as an ecosystem too. For more, please visit sytse.com/cancer. Please write to us with thoughts or questions at cancer@sytse.com.—Thanks to Jacob Stern and ChinaTalk. From: Clinical Trial Abundance, Made in China. Flying to China for cancer care. APR 17. 2026. ChinaTalk.

How China does it

Leon Liao’s perspective is so valuable that I’ve hoisted it from the comments: This American medical scientist’s experience in a Beijing hospital highlights more than just speed—it reveals the deeper institutional strengths of China’s healthcare system. China’s investigator-initiated trial (IIT) ecosystem operates with stronger reputation effects, physician-led decision-making, and local ethics/scientific oversight, making it in key ways more market-oriented than the current U.S. early-stage clinical trial system, which relies heavily on rigid top-down procedures.

The real advantage lies in China’s ability to deliver speed, cost predictability, and high technical credibility—simultaneously—which many Western systems struggle to provide. What was once dismissed as basic “medical tourism” has evolved in China into a sophisticated option, supported by integrated tertiary hospitals, fast diagnostic and treatment pathways, aggressive procurement, and high-throughput specialist environments.

China compresses timelines (e.g., an experimental biomarker scan in two hours or moving from trial idea to patient in 18 months) not through isolated miracles, but through tighter coordination among doctors, hospitals, CDMOs, and research platforms, combined with lower administrative friction and stronger system-level integration.Western healthcare’s core challenge is systemic: multi-payer fragmentation, administrative burdens, specialist shortages, and referral/approval bottlenecks turn speed itself into a scarce resource.

In contrast, China has chosen a different tradeoff—lower unit prices, higher physician intensity, and concentrated top-tier capabilities—in exchange for dramatically shorter waits.Formal regulatory review timelines can also be misleading. A 30-day FDA clock matters little if reaching the starting line already takes 12–18 months and millions of dollars in preparation. China’s faster hospitals are downstream of faster regulators and lower entry barriers for early clinical experimentation.

Caveat on sensitive areas

While system coordination explains many efficiency gains, domains like organ transplantation require extra scrutiny. Short wait times there raise legitimate questions about donor sourcing, transparency, and independent verification, even as China has increased official voluntary donations and built national allocation systems in recent years.In short, China’s edge is not merely cheaper care or more hospitals—it is a structural ability to reduce coordination costs and waiting times in complex medical processes, making it a rational choice for patients seeking timely, credible advanced care.

The thing about Shenzhen that changed everything for me is the access, maker-spaces everywhere open to anyone, components available in any quantity at any hour, hardware meetups and deep-tech demo nights happening every single day where founders show up with actual physical prototypes & get torn apart by engineers who’ve been shipping products for 20 years. Other things, too, like

• investor sessions where VCs ask about your thermal dissipation strategy before they ask about your revenue,

• the density of ambitious people building physical things in one city is something I’ve never experienced anywhere else on earth

• the education pipeline feeding all of this is staggering, chinese kids start building robots & programming microcontrollers in middle school as part of the national curriculum by high school they’re doing projects in machine vision& embedded systems

• Tsinghua, USTC & Zhejiang universities produce researchers who go from publishing a paper to founding a startup with govt-backed seed-funding in a matter of months…

• the pipeline from fundamental research to applied engineering to company creation is seamless here in a way that would make any european researcher cry

• what we in the west completely miss is the role of the tech giants as ecosystem builders, Juawei Alibaba, Tencent & Baidu are operating as deeptech accelerators at a scale that has no equivalent in the west.

• Huawei alone runs the ascend AI ecosystem where they give hardware startups access to their custom AI chips their toolchains& their cloud infrastructure for free or near free so founders can build on top of chinese silicon instead of depending on NVIDIA

• Alibaba’s academy funds and incubates in quantum computing chip design and autonomous driving then plugs them directly into alibaba cloud’s customer base & tencent invests in robotics companies and connects them to its manufacturing partners. These aren’t passive financial investors writing checks from SF, they’re active ecosystem architects who provide silicon compute distribution channels & manufacturing access in a single integrated package

• The 4 AI chip startups, « four dragons» Moore Threads, MetaX, Biren and Enflame all going public simultaneously valued at billions:

• Huawei rolling out a 3y roadmap to overtake NVIDIA & the deeptech VCs here write checks with a technical depth I’ve rarely seen anywhere: people who read your papers who understand your architecture at the gate level who challenge your engineering choices on EMI coupling & power stage layout before they even look at your market

I genuinely think think the sanctions have been the greatest unintentional R&D program in history, they forced China to build in 5y what would have taken 20 without them, and now the country is sitting on a self sufficient semiconductor ecosystem, a dominant position in clean energy tech, a manufacturing base that operates like a collective intelligence network and an education system that produces millions of engineers who see building physical things as the highest form of ambition

Meanwhile the west is spending trillions on a war in the middle east and debating whether AI needs another ethics committee.

I know where I want to be and it’s here​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.

Medhi.