Science & Technology
Above, from TP Huang: “Robotic hand w/ 15 DOF. More advanced than anything I have seen to date”.
Breakthrough algo makes humanoid robots swiftly right themselves from any position. Zhongqing Robotics’s humanoid robots does first ever forward somersault.
UBTech trains multiple humanoid robots to create an industrial, autonomous, multitasking humanoid robot workforce with collective intelligence.
The humanoid robot value chain comprises the ‘Brain’ (semiconductors, AI models, software). ‘Body’: sensors, actuators, batteries and wiring. ‘Integrators’ develop and assemble full humanoid robots. 56% of global companies in humanoids are Chinese.
Unlike other AI assistants, Manus completes tasks rather than offering recommendations. It won top scores across the GAIA benchmarks of AI assistants’ ability to solve real-world problems.
Shenzhen expects $14 billion from embodied intelligent robotics by 2026, with 1,200 enterprises launching 50 AI products in mobiles, computers, all-in-one machines, etc. and 150M AI products output.
Beijing adds another public smart computing cluster w/ 10 EFLOPS (= 5M military laptops) to its 22 EFLOPS public compute. Operated like a public lending library.
China produces twice as many research papers as the US on chip design and fabrication, a foundation for leadership role in next-generation semiconductors.
USTC’s superconducting quantum computing prototype is a million times faster than Google’s Sycamore quantum processor, which it showcased last year.
China’s 500–2,000 sq.m. (5,000–20,000 sq. ft.) Cold-Seep Research Facility includes wet labs for biological samples, dry labs for data analysis, and instrumentation for specialized equipment.
China has built 2 million 5G base stations across the BRI. BeiDou’s Satellites serve 110 countries, CCTV, smart surveillance, predictive policing are being adopted in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Indonesia.
The one-eighth vacuum chamber shows we have mastered the technologies for a toroidal vacuum chamber for fusion reactors, and the system’s technology has been applied to particle accelerators, precision machinery and electronics.
China produces most of the basic research for future computing hardware more than twice the quantity and quality produced by US researchers. The US will struggle to retain its competitive advantage with export controls.
Trade & Finance
In 2025, the deficit ratio will hit a new high of 4%, for a one percentage point rise compared to 2024. In 1999 China took its cue from the EU’s Maastricht Treaty, setting 3% as the core benchmark for a healthy fiscal deficit.
After four years of tightening, a global pandemic, fighting a trade/tech war, crackdowns on tech and for-profits, Chinese households are understandably apprehensive. Beijing policymakers are entering a kindler, gentler phase, but will Chinese households open their wallets?
China to withdraw securities from the EU. Hong Kong is creating an alternative to Euroclear and Clearstream (which administer $62 trillion) to reduce dependence on Western financial infrastructure.
Tesla’s Chinese sales plunged 52% in February, to 30,688 Shanghai-made Model 3, the lowest since 28,217 vehicles were delivered in July 2022.
Society
Above: Household cash deposits dwarf “sophisticated” financial products like stocks, bonds and overseas assets. U.S. households hold less than10% of assets in cash.
China’s first fully AI-generated fantasy adventure drama, “The Mystery of Greater Khingan Range,” had 40 million views on the Douyin platform in just three days,
Liu Jiakun wins Pritzker Prize, ‘Nobel’ for architecture. Recognizes his designs that celebrate “everyday lives.”
Free preschool education to be phased in following a three year action plan.
“The Meng Wanzhou [the Huawei executive held in Canada] incident stirred ordinary Chinese people the most. It was a major public relations debacle for the US in China”.
After aiming to increase its 2020 life expectancy (78 years) by one year by 2025, China’s average life expectancy reached 79 in 2024, 10th among G20 countries.
Governance
“Unlike the United States, a plutocracy, China’s ruling class is made up of mandarins and could just as easily be called the Confucianist Party. In many ways, China has reverted to its traditional governance structure, in place for 2,000 years”.
“With 5% of the world’s population, the US consumes 80% of the world’s opioids, but still has not permanently scheduled fentanyl-related substances, contributing to the proliferation of fentanyl in the US”.
EHang delivered 200+ autonomous drone taxis in 2024, mostly to SOEs. Since Beijing prioritized the low-altitude economy, it now has orders for 1,000+.
The content below was originally paywalled.
China will establish a $139 billion venture capital guidance fund to support innovation-driven growth, says NDRC head Zheng Shanjie.
Geopolitics
There are no values in U.S. foreign policy. Only leverage: Ukraine was never about democracy. Just like Iraq was never about freedom. Just like Libya was never about humanitarianism. Just like Vietnam was never about stopping communism. They were all pretexts. Nothing more.
The crucial link between Russophobia and Sinophobia? Neither is truly about Russia or China as they exist. They are about the West’s reaction to a world in which it can no longer dictate terms unchallenged. The absence of hostile intent is never considered a possibility.
Immiseration in Japan is so bad that their average height is declining. There’s a lot of underlying discontent. For example, one of Japan’s prime ministers was recently assassinated—a clear sign of instability. Japan is definitely in a crisis mode at this point, unlike China.
Americans don’t really get this whole EV deal: it’s not just about cars. EV factories can make any electric vehicle, and in China dozens of companies – close or superior to Tesla – are in a ruthless rat race. You can’t close that gap with subsidies.
Propaganda
There’s a certain cadence to decline, a rhythm of arrogance and desperation, of miscalculation and delusion. The late-stage empire, unmoored from reality yet clinging to myths of its own indispensability, lashes out at perceived threats not because they are real, but because it cannot conceive of a world in which it is no longer the gravitational centre of history. In this way, Russophobia and Sinophobia function not merely as ideological constructs, but as symptoms of systemic decay, the fever dreams of a civilisation struggling to process its own obsolescence.
Defense & Security
Beijing announced a 7.2% increase in the 2025 defense budget, the 10th consecutive year of single-digit growth.
“If the US wants war, a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight to the end,” says Chinese embassy. China’s exports rose 7.1% to $3.5T in 2024, with just $524.6B to the US. $1.67T Global South exports beat $1.4T exports to the West.
NYT: New restrictions solidify China’s market dominance. As of Oct. 1, rare earth exporters must provide the authorities with detailed, step-by-step tracings of how shipments of rare earth metals are used in Western supply chains. That has given Beijing greater authority over which overseas companies receive scarce supplies.
China has spent the last 6 years preparing for Trade War Round 2 by becoming self sufficient while America did virtually nothing. In this round China will go for the jugular. Export controls on minerals (especially dysprosium, which only China has) mean the US cannot make dysprosium magnets for fighter engines and nuclear subs. This is a strategic card, played to achieve strategic level objectives like crippling the US military. If it means collapsing her only enemy, China will forsake her $504B trade with the US. Why not? Just write off $504B and your enemy ceases to exist. I bet this what CPC is contemplating. – Mis Li.
