Tesla’s nightmare: free FSD.
Science & Technology
China’s memory chip global share hits 5%. One fab can produce enough DRAM chips to cover 13%. YMTC will catch SK Hynix and Samsung in NAND flash this year.
Chinese biotechs have 6,280 drugs development – up 1,200% since 2015, and 70% of America’s total – and are consistently beating Western companies to clinical trials.
The Zeekr 7X EV’s 800-volt ‘Golden Battery’ charges from 10% to 80% in nine minutes, a world record, adding 1,270 miles of range per hour.
DeepMind AI on par with top human mathematicians after AlphaGeometry2 matches gold-medalists in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
Trade & Economy
The cheapest EV on the market in 2025, the Keyu KBW-4, above, costs $610.
BYD includes FSD free for models under $14,000. Three cameras & 5 MW radars. No subscription. BYD outsells Tesla in the UK, Spain, Portugal.
China’s Trade in Services surpasses $1 trillion, growing 14% YoY, with exports rising 18.2% and imports up 11.8%.
The top pharmaceutical exporters were Germany ($120 billion), Switzerland ($99 billion), the US ($90 billion). China earned $54 billion, up 5.7% YoY.
72% of China’s rare earth exports to the USA are lanthanum and cerium, so U.S. gasoline and auto glass prices rise 30%.
China investigates Google’s browser monopoly. Huawei’s Harmony OS, with one billion installations, is ready to replace Android.
China is switching the world from paywalled tech tied to a subordinate productive sector to cheap/free tech subordinated to a dominant productive sector where there are no shortcuts: compete or die.
Chongqing City has launches direct freight trains to Afghanistan and Central Asia, sends new national telecom gear.
ByteDance revolutionizes photo-to-video conversion: OmniHuman generates full-body videos from a single photo, animating speech, singing, and movement.
Record 24 GW installed in BRI countries in 2024, doubling 2023 levels. Renewables led with 52% of projects using solar (8 GW) and hydro (5 GW).
A 1% increase in China’s GDP growth raises advanced economies by 0.2−0.4% and emerging economies by 0.3−0.8% and demonstrate significant, sustained effects.
Chinese American colleagues in Texas public universities must now report family visit trip to China ahead of trip, and provide a post-travel briefing detailing the trip. Land of the free.
Tungsten, Tellurium, Bismuth, Molybdenum, Indium now under export control, PVH Group and Illumina added to the Unreliable Entity List.
China again tops the world with a record 6.41 million vehicles exported in 2024.
Society
As a Brit, why do I live in China? I live in safe, expensive Shenzhen, where punctual subways cost 30p-90p and HSR costs 25% of UK fares. My 4 br. apartment, £600/mo..
230 million farming households average 1.3 acres (7.8 mu) each, produce 80% of the food supply. In the USA, 2.2 million farms average 420 ac. (2,550 mu).
Governance
Xi Jinping, Party Secretary of Fuzhou City, 1995, discusses poverty alleviation.
China Hits 2030 Clean Energy Goal Six Years Ahead of Schedule, thanks to record installations of solar and wind power.
As a secular power using a non-alphabetical writing system in a non-secular world that uses alphabetical systems, China lacks the cultural and religious interoperability to spread a vision of global civilisation.
72% of Chinese scientists in the US ‘do not feel safe’. Returned scientists publish more high-impact research than those who never left.
Geopolitics
Comparing DeepSeek and Grok highlights the broader themes of technology
The content below was originally paywalled.
democratization and the evolving landscape of global AI regulation.
RIP: An entire ecosystem of vital China-related work is now in crisis. Anti-China publications face imminent closure due to lack of funding.
C.I.A. director William J. Burns expanded China coverage from 9% of the agency’s budget to 20%. The new DG, John Ratcliffe will follow suit.
Sun Nan returned from the USA in 2020 and has since integrated his circuit design technologies into advanced chips for power grids, HSR, EVs, and industrial systems—and outperformed imported counterparts.
Defense
A powerful nation is defined by three factors: relative landmass and population size, GDP per capita, and cohesion between elites and the general populace. Because of the tension between these factors, there are only a handful of powerful nations.
Researchers modelled the V-shaped surface disturbance created by submarines as they slice through water, the ‘Kelvin wake,’ ending the era of absolute stealth.
America’s actions show the world there are no international laws or norms. Just the size of your fleet, the diameter of your bombs, the caliber of your artillery and the range of your missiles.
The PLAN’s unmanned drone ship, above, is the largest of its kind in the world. Its large VLS launches anti-air and air-ship missiles while its unmanned helicopter conducts anti-submarine duties. They are designed to swarm the seas around Taiwan and conduct a naval blockade of the island without risking many manned platforms.
