Here Comes China

Some of this was taken from Godfree Roberts’ excellent weekly newsletter on what is what and what is new in China.  Other items were collected by me.  Many pieces were gleaned from Godfree and further examined.

Godfree’s update of his book Why China Leads the World: The 2023 edition is out and, with it, the new Audible version. Listen and wonder!

I have to say that Godfree’s book on China helped me tremendously to first find my way and gain basic understanding of this massive civilizational state, organized around values, rather than politics.  This is the book that gave me such a solid grounding in all things China, that I could begin to understand the nuances.  Godfree is an educator and he designed this book as an education.  It is that.

It’s the only book that explains all three elements of China’s success:

1. Talent at the Top: only the brightest, most idealistic, and visionary people are admitted to politics–a policy unchanged in 2200 years.
2. Data in the Middle: policies are implemented, tracked, and optimized based on terabytes of data. The PRC is the world’s largest consumer of public surveys.
3. Democracy at the Bottom: ordinary people, all unpaid amateurs, assemble twice a year to check the stats and sign off on new legislation. Policies need a minimum of 66% support to become law. That’s why 95% of Chinese say the country is on the right track.

Book updates include an investigation of why the epidemic accelerated the change of global leadership from America to China and examines China’s bigger, steadier economy, its science leadership, stronger military, more powerful allies, and wider international support.  This book will help readers to understand this tectonic shift, adapt to this new era, and even thrive in it.

The size of China’s displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world. Lee Kuan Yew: The Future of US-China Relations. The Atlantic.

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Here comes China with a full rice-bowl and rice that yields 30% more than anything up to date.  To put this in perspective, India and major rice-producing countries have set export limits on the crop, in these days of food shortages.  That made the price spike.  The new China Giant Rice variety is one of the food production efforts that will help China with relatively little land available for agricultural use, and 1.4 Billion mouths to feed.

It is a non-genetically engineered rice and the process of developing this is a careful crossbreeding with the qualities that you seek.  It takes years to develop and in the end, you have a stable new variety without genetic slicing and dicing.

Lu Xiwan, a farmer in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, planted 13.3 hectares of the rice variety this year and obtained a yield of 2,200-3,000kg (4,850-6,614lbs) more rice per hectare (2.5 acres) compared to previous years, according to state news agency Xinhua.  China News Service reported on August 19 that giant rice was capable of producing yields 30 per cent higher than conventional rice, reaching 9,000kg per hectare.  This was the aim of the research team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Subtropical Agriculture created in 2017 – Create more rice per hectare.   Read More … 

So, this is China, and one of the most revered scientists in their lands is  Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice”, in the 1970s.  Do you know of a scientist in your lands that is revered and known across the social sphere for improving the yield of food?  I cannot think of one.  Have you seen your media overrun with writing on how a hybrid Rice will help food scarcity?  I bet not!  In China, the basic value is the people, not the politics.

You may be the harshest critic of the green wave, and we all understand the grift that goes with green, but we all know that we have to change our ways on our earth.  We may disagree with how, and we will agree on the areas that are driven by non-scientific garbage (I think of the EU), but that a change is necessary can no longer be in question.

China’s gasoline demand has peaked, two years earlier than expected, due to the number of EVs on the road. Diesel demand for heavier vehicles will keep growing for a bit longer, but electric, fuel cell and battery-swapping account for 12% of light commercial vehicle sales and 4% to 5% of medium and heavy commercial vehicle sales. Ride-hailing EVs are more productive than gasoline, accounting for 50% of the kilometers traveled Didi’s ride-hailing platform in December. Read article →

Cast your mind back to when civilization moved from horse and buggy to the horseless carriage.  The complete structure of society changed.  They built roads as cobblestone roads did not suffice any longer.  They built gas stations and even hotdog and ice cream stands and you can buy your milk of the day next to gas stations.  Travel became ubiquitous and easy – the social contract changed.  Agricultural production changed with mechanization and all aspects of our lives changed.  Then, we built airplanes and international travel became available to almost everyone.  This is the size of the civilizational change that is now happening in China.  EV’s are not problematic because you can stop at a battery exchange station, and not wait to charge, but exchange.  A friendly robot pulls the dead battery out, and replaces a live one.   It is a civilizational change, and Chinese roads are new and fine for less powerful EV’s.  China builds a tremendous power infrastructure to make it possible to maintain EV fleets.  We are on the curve of this magnitude of civilizational change.

So, I’m putting the reader in a world where we don’t stop to fill up with gas but robot-dude quickly swaps out our battery, our vehicles are smaller and good public transportation is available everywhere (Rail system, EV bus system, water taxis ..)

Can you understand the following sentence?

Automated eVTOL battery changing hangar for EVs inspecting power lines. With a retractable vertipad for the take-off and landing of small-sized aircraft, the hangar ensures continuous unmanned inspection along important power lines and grids in remote areas. Read full article →

I must admit I had to go and parse it, because it sounds like something from a science fiction hobby mag.  It is very real and it is how drones are used for peaceful and positive work, where the human being is mostly protected from the harshest activities and conditions.  This allows power lines to run across mountains, seas, and lakes, as the maintenance is generally trouble-free and the operation is automated.  The link leads to China Robopedia and the hard and dangerous work is being placed on the backs of robots, leaving the human population to pay attention to more important tasks.

Live in the desert or the sticks and want a little fresh prawn or shrimp?  China has got you covered:

Xinjiang’s seawater aquafarming (!), including fish, king prawn, abalone and lobsters, as part of efforts to seek technological breakthroughs in agriculture. Local aquaculture firm Xinjiang Shi Shi Xian has developed technology to simulate seawater in its fishery located on the edge of a desert. The saline level – a mixture of salt and water – in southern Xinjiang is naturally “close to the level in seawater”, said project lead Chen Jiazhen. Read article →

Note, this is not meat glue type stuff or green slime product slammed together –  It is real seafood.  What is the saying … “Mahomet cald the Hill to come to him. And when the Hill stood still, he was neuer a whit abashed, but said; If the Hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill“.  In this case the Chinese are bringing the ocean to the desert.  Mahomet’s dictum has changed.

Medical AI is in its infancy but growing fast.

• According to VBData estimates, from 2020 to 2025, the compound annual growth rate of China’s medical AI sector will be about 40%, and the total market size will exceed 30 billion RMB by 2025.
• Per Huxiu’s compilation, after ChatGPT’s viral launch, Chinese groups have now produced at least 18 medical models (based on the large model paradigm).
• In May 2023, China hosted “the world’s first ‘double-blind trial’ in which AI doctors and human doctors face real human patients at the same time. In a competition scored by seven experts, Medlinker’s MedGPT scored just .3 points lower than doctors from top tertiary hospitals (comprehensive general hospital, highest tier in China).

Read full article →

First thing that the Chinese authorities did, was to develop a set of regulations, so that providers of this inherently dangerous technology are registered, subject to audit, security reviews and oversight.  They MUST use relevant and true data.  Read full article →

About three years ago when the Western sanctions on China’s technology sector started reaching outsize proportions and the propaganda against China started being organized in think tanks whose job it is to propagandize everything, and it looked like Huawei was dealt a death blow, I made a prediction that China will leapfrog the technology and roll their own. This is clear as Huawei, at the time of Gina Raimondo’s visit to China, did a soft launch of their new phone, the Mate 60 and a Pro version. The launch is still coming, but this soft launch was an iron fist in Raimondo’s efforts to get China to bow before the hegemon.

Thank you for the sanctions!
China couldn’t have done it without the relentless encouragements.🤔 pic.twitter.com/L0oGfjDhCe

— ShanghaiPanda (@thinking_panda) September 6, 2023

Only in three years …

Huawei’s Mate60 is a gift we gave to Ms. Raimondo, the US Secretary of Commerce, during her visit to China.
The official product launch will be held on September 12th. https://t.co/hhmdMqS8tH

— ShanghaiPanda (@thinking_panda) September 5, 2023

Pepe Escobar had this summary:  The end of the Mate 60 PRO story:

THE DEFINITIVE HUAWEI MATE 60 PRO VERDICT

And it comes from Bill Chen from the National University of Singapore.

• “This phone is not subject to sanctions.
• It has nothing to do with Google.
• t has nothing to do with TSMC.
• It has nothing to do with any western semiconductor tool manufacturer.
• It has nothing to do with any Taiwan/South Korea/Japan/U.S. parts or material suppliers.
• It has nothing to do with U.S. patents.
• No other mobile phone manufacturer can boast such an achievement.
• It has nothing to do with the United States at all, and it is completely outside the scope of sanctions. This is a historic first.”

And the icing on the cake… “The comprehensive sanctions on Huawei have cut off its dependence on foreign suppliers who are vulnerable to U.S. sanctions, and forced Huawei to establish a supply chain that can only be carried out domestically, which allows it to withstand sanctions without losing its livelihood. The existence of this completely independent supply chain (including non-Swift financing) is a nightmare for Gina Raimondo and her Department of Commerce.”

A note on Huawei which few people know.  It is an employee-owned company.

From the Defense world:

The potential for conflict among nuclear powers could escalate into an open military confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov cautioned

The senior diplomat added that the open military pressure on Russia is dangerously teetering on the brink of an armed conflict between global nuclear powers.

This infographic lists the Major Military activities in the month of August only.  All that is wrong with it, is the new weasel word, Indo-Pacific.

I don’t think much more needs to be said.  The infographic speaks for itself.

The collective West is trying to cut off all scientific cooperation between themselves and China. Now, it is a ‘roll-back’.   First, the collective West in a fit of pique decoupled global supply chains using the propaganda of Slave Labor in Xinjiang.  Then, they embargoed the chip technology mainly from the Netherlands.   There is an open persecution of Chinese-origin scientists who work in the West and they are leaving in droves to go back to China.  There are sanctions on senior Chinese officials.

Something smacks of desperation.

From Dan Lieberman’s substack:  The US State and Defense Departments continue to speak “white men” words, saying anything they want against the East Asians, bashing China to advance their agendas and fomenting hatred against the Chinese people. They hope to have the distortions convince others to build alliances and subdue the PRC. Why subdue the PRC? The US fears that more of the PRC forebodes less of the USA. To US officials, the international arena is a zero-sum game, and what the PRC gains, the USA loses. A stronger China also forecasts a stronger challenge to US hegemony. This portentous prophesy does not have to happen and China has shown it does not want it to happen. After years of the “debase China strategy,” the US has little to show for its efforts and, by another counterproductive foreign policy, has assured China will grow economically and militarily stronger and will challenge US hegemony.