China's Week, July 10.
600km/h maglev, ASML killer, Battery prices fall 40%, BRICS $1 trillion trade, 470,000 tons of REEs found, Short dramas' $8 billion, Building J-20s in 8 days.
Science & Technology
New 600km/h train runs on rubber wheels up to 150 kph, thenswitches to maglev suspension.
Huawei’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography enters trial production 3Q 2025, mass production in 2026. More efficient than ASML’s laser-produced plasma.
Paralyzed patient move his limbs again after the world’s first human trial of a brain-computer interface implanted through blood vessels.
Taiwan’s AI BrainProbe detects schizophrenia with 91% accuracy.
China's biotech prowess threatens the US. $30 billion of deals in 2024. $40 billion in 2025?.
China will have 30% of global foundry capacity by 2030, up from 21% today, surpassing Taiwan’s 23%, South Korea’s 19% and America’s 10%.
Auction results for batteries stun experts: $52/kWh for a four-hour LFP battery, down 30% from 2024. CATL, BYD, Envision all bid.
Industrial robot output up 36% YoY in May, to 70,000 units. Morgan Stanley expects $108 billion revenues by 2028.
The vast majority of the world’s top AI 100 brains are of Chinese origin, a study of 200,000 researchers and 100,000 high-impact papers reveals.
Turning Labs Into Launchpads: How China Builds Quantum Industries From Frontier Science.
BYD covers losses from its L4 ‘God's Eye’ assisted driving using smart parking in China. Users bypass insurance, BYD after-sales staff handle it.
Finance & Commerce
Trade between BRICS members hit $1 trillion, up from $294 billion in 2023, accounting for 41.4% of its total foreign trade.
The consumption gap between China and developed countries is much narrower when measured by actual consumption volumes.
Goldman Sachs says China is buying far more gold than the PBoC declares, predicts
$4000 gold price by 2026.
China finds 470,000 tons of super-rare REEs – praseodymium, neodymium, dysprosium and terbium – in ore on the surface of clay beds.
The Shanghai Gold Exchange, the world’s largest physical gold exchange, opened its first offshore physical gold delivery vault in Hong Kong.
Brazil and China studying the feasibility of a 2,800 mile railway connecting Atlantic Brazil to Peru’s Chinese built Chancay Port, cutting shipping times to Asia by 12 days.
World's first pure ammonia-powered vessel completes maiden voyage in China.
World's first open ocean ship-to-ship transfer of liquid CO2 using Onboard Carbon Capture and Storage (OCCS) revolutionizes shipping industry.
Society & Environment
NYT: The Coder ‘Village’ at the Heart of China’s A.I. Frenzy. Aspiring tech titans mingle and share ideas in Hangzhou, home to DeepSeek and Alibaba–but little else.
Short-drama apps generated $6.9 billion domestically, $1.2 billion overseas (60% from the US) in 2024, overtaking box office revenue for the first time. Watch one here.
Football club fined for superstitious talismans in visitors’ locker room.
The world’s earliest known steel acupuncture needles, dating back 2,000 years, unearthed.
Thousands chase a day’s wage at Guiyang's largest day labour market. At 4:30 am, a drink to start a day’s toil
Shanghai’s cultural renaissance: A shopping mall features 23 dynamic venues, from immersive musicals to stand-up comedy, for 300,000 visitors and 5,000+ shows.
Outbound travel matches 2019 levels with 155 million trips this year, with 44% of Q2 2025 travelers going abroad for the first time, up from 38% in Q1.
From 2000 to 2019, wind-eroded soil in the deserts and sandy land fell 40% and China became the first nation to achieve zero growth in land degradation.
China's energy consumption per unit of GDP decreased by 11.6% in the first four years of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).
Elon Musk’s hashtag, #MuskWantsToBuildAnAmericaParty, got 40 million views on Weibo.
Governance
77 of Shanghai’s FTZ’s rules roll out nationally: including digital trade governance, IP protection, government procurement, risk prevention and data security.
$112 billion for 2025 National Projects like the western land-sea corridor, high-standard farmland development, water conservancy.
Liaoning encourages union membership for new employment workers with rest zones, meals, reading areas and mobile services like on-site medical exams.
Top candidate poisoned cats in college, can’t join Civil Service after netizens uncovered his role in a spate of cat poisonings as a university student.
Xi Jinping: “On the basis of the spiritual compatibility between Marxism and the excellent traditional Chinese culture, a profound chemical reaction will take place, so as to promote the integration of the two and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.
Geopolitics
The Washington Post is hiring a new China Bureau Chief. Mandarin skills ‘not strictly required’.
The first China shock was when China was incorporating into our supply chains. The Second China shock will come when we beg to be incorporated into theirs.
BRICS has expanded to 20 countries after adding Vietnam. Now makes up 44% of world GDP and 56% of its population.
Uzbekistan’s UHV cross-border power transmission lines will run through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to China.
Defense
The twin seat J-20 fighter is in service, the first 5G fighter with a weapons officer to guide its supporting drones. [A J-20 update will hit your inbox this weekend].
Australia’s Latest Military Deployment To Europe Is Connected To Containing China.
Chengdu Aerospace’s Pulse Assembly Lines cuts manufacturing time of a J-20 fighter from 30 days to 8.
China’s PL-15 was the first air-to-air missiles use an AESA radar while boasting a 200 km range. It is unmatched by any American missile.
‘Telepathy’ radio could make combat units invisible for electronic warfare edge.
China is the enemy of the future, says the US Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance. It directs the military to “deter” Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region.
Pentagon halts shipments of some missiles and munitions to Ukraine because U.S. stockpiles have fallen too low. How will stocks be replenished without rare earths?