China's Week, Sunday Feb. 16
First phased array CT; Hexagonal warriors; AI machines outperform people; Chinese buy 36% of world's cars; Clean energy drives 90% of new investment.
Science & Technology
World’s first phased array CT detects 1 mm lung nodules, distinguishes between benign and malignant, helps avoid unnecessary surgery and over-medication.
Chery’s first mass-production EV with pure electromechanical braking, EMB, replaces hydraulic components with fully electronic control..
China accelerated a one-ton maglev test vehicle to 700 km/h in two seconds and brought it to a stable stop in 400 m with electromagnetic propulsion and levitation.
CATL and BYD continued to lead as global EV battery market reached 1,187 GWh in 2025, up 32% YoY. CATL and BYD maintained a 55.6% share with 659.5 GWh installed.
China’s 3d printing record: complex, millimeter-scale objects in 0.6 sec. High-dimensional holographic light fields create a 3D solid structure instantaneously.
Chinese robotics companies’ decisive lead in amassing real-world data and their data advantage relative to international rivals continues to widen.
China, striving to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, test-flew a new, reusable booster and crew abort capsule: the results were spectacular.
Economy & Finance
China is too formidable a rival to be reined in by diplomacy or an aggressive shift in policy. The only solution is to get our house in order and beat China at its own game.
China’s digital services exports soar as tech firms expand overseas: “The services
trade is gradually becoming a new engine supporting China’s trade balance.”
Automation and AI adoption in Chinese factories have accelerated far beyond expectations, not because of labor costs but because machines perform better.
China accounted for a record 35.6% of global automotive sales in 2025, 34.35 million units—up 9% YoY—out of total worldwide sales of 96.47 million vehicles.
3 chip toolmakers enter global top 20, up from one in 2022. Naura rises to 5th, AMEC’s etching systems to 13th, SMEE was 20th in lithography equipment.
9 of the top 10 fastest-growing exporting regions were located outside coastal manufacturing belts. Xinjiang led with 20% foreign trade expansion.
China’s logistics efficiency hit a new high in 2025, 13.9% of GDP, but US business logistics costs average only 8.7%.
During 2025, Meituan, Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent, and CATL all made embodied AI investments: this sector is priority list of the country’s most sophisticated corporate allocators.
Successful embodied AI founders, ‘hexagonal warriors,’ must excel in six dimensions: software, hardware, scenario understanding, engineering, fundraising, and ecosystem building.
Society & Environment
Clean-energy industries drove more than one-third of China’s economic growth in 2025 and over 90% of new investment.
Wind power is booming, offshore wind even more so. China’s turbine exports are surging creating a tough choice for Europe. Rare earth prices rise as EVs, robots, and eVTOL drive new demand
How old is Chinese civilisation? A scholar says its recorded history stretches back 8,000 years – three millennia beyond the widely accepted benchmark.
We found people in Baoding, China, more secure than in urban Taiwan. The vast majority of the retired people we interviewed had generous pensions.
Governance & Geopolitics
China spent $10 billion—what New York & Baltimore spend for wheelchair ramps and a new bridge—and got an 80-mile canal, 27 new bridges and shipping lanes for three billion people.
The US warns Peru it over sovereignty after a Peruvian court ruling limited state oversight of a Chinese-controlled megaport, prompting a sharp rebuke from Beijing.
Chinese outpace Japanese, European robotics giants by innovating their way into new markets: 80% of food & beverage industry robots and 100% of its textiles & apparel industry are domestically made.
China Issues Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for Public Utilities, Plans Unified National Electricity Market by 2035.
Beijing reduced the weight of food prices in the consumer price index (CPI) basket to 17.2%, housing to 22.1%, and healthcare to 8.9%.
Defense
Researchers flight-tested an aerodynamic thrust vectoring system with no moving parts. They just swapped in a lightweight tail nozzle, with no mods to the UAV itself.
Norinco’s barrage weapon counters drones with its dense firepower, mobile deployment options and area-wide interception ability. It reflects a deep shift in how Beijing is preparing for future wars.
China’s robotics technology leadership poses difficult questions for the United States: how can countries maintain manufacturing competitiveness without indigenous automation capabilities?