2021 was China’s best year. Ever.
Despite global gloom, 2021 was the best year in China’s history. Here’s what they did:
- Eliminated extreme poverty.
- Reached 98% home ownership.
- Kept Covid deaths at 0.6% of America’s rate.
- Grew the economy by $2 trillion PPP, their fastest growth ever and four times America’s.
- Sold $140 billion retail online in 24 hours (Amazon’s best is $5 billion).
- Became the richest country on earth.
- Became the world’s largest movie market.
- Produced a new billionaire and 300 millionaires every workday.
- Completed new train lines in seven countries, including Laos’ first.
- Ran 12,000 cargo trains to and from Europe, up 30% on last year.
- Joined RCEP, the world’s biggest trade pact, effective January 1, 2022.
- Launched the first central bank digital currency.
Dominated scientific research and issued the most patents of any country.- Built three exascale computers, winning the Gordon Bell Prize for supercomputing. (One of the three runs AI programs 88,000 times faster than its predecessor).
- Built a programmable quantum computer 10,000x faster than Google’s Sycamore.
- Operated the first integrated, 3,000-mile, commercial, quantum communications network.
- Brought online two gas-cooled Pebble Bed nuclear power plants.
- Fired up two thorium-fueled reactors, eliminating uranium from power generation.
- Released a Covid treatment that reduces hospitalizations and deaths 78%.
- Made 55% of global energy savings: ore than the rest of the world combined.
- Generated 1 terawatt of renewable energy. The US uses 4 terawatts, total.
- Installed one-million 5G base stations, giving Tibet better 5G service than New York.
- Communicated between satellites via lasers, 1,000x faster than radio waves.
- Successfully tested the world’s most powerful solid rocket engine.
- Flew three hypersonic missiles around the planet.
- Released a fractional orbital bombardment missile from another missile at 17,000 mph.
- Simultaneously commissioned three warships and became the world’s biggest, most powerfully armed navy in the world.
Expect China to maintain this pace through 2022 by launching, among other things, the first, greenfield, automated, 21st century city. 70% of its area are woods and lakes, and the loudest sound its six million knowledge workers will hear is birdsongs.
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Godfree Roberts wrote Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the Bottom. [Amazon]
