New Yorker: China races to own the industries of the future
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images
America has been napping or distracted by trivialities while China is racing toward the future, in part by taking advantage of President Trump's trade, immigration and budget policies.
- That's the eye-opening reality that Evan Osnos unfurls in a 12-page piece for The New Yorker, "The Future, Made in China."
Why it matters: China could beat the U.S. to the future on a host of fronts, including engineering a cure for cancer.
What it says: "For China, America's retreat comes just as decades of state investment, industrial policy, and diplomatic planning are paying off," Osnos writes.
- An American executive told him: "People in Washington are worried that biotech is the next E.V.s ... We've scared all of this f*cking talent back to China. If you look at the guys who are doing this, they used to work for Western pharma giants, or they were running a top university department somewhere."
- In a flex, China now welcomes Western influencers, investors and commentators on "tech tours" that yield "infrastructure porn" and "Chinamaxxing."
Between the lines: Osnos, who lived in Beijing for eight years as a foreign correspondent, returned for 10 days as part of four months of reporting. He says the capital is noticeably quieter than when he left in 2013 — "an awkward serenity to life in the capital of a high-tech, one-party state."
- "The vehicles, many of which are electric now, move silently through the streets, and in any case the residents have fewer reasons to go out; China has the world's busiest e-commerce market, and there isn't much that can't be delivered on the back of a scooter," he writes.
- "All day long, people scan each other's QR codes to swap cash on such digital-payment systems as WeChat and Alipay, feeding the algorithms an ever more intricate portrait of their movements and preferences."
The intrigue: The surveillance future is here: Osnos felt constantly watched — because he was, including psychologically. At an AI expo in Beijing, Osnos stood in front of a kiosk that took an emotional X-ray by measuring "micro-gestures" in his face. The results: He possesses 76.67% positive emotion and 23.33% negative emotion, split between fear and rage.
- The state can use such readings to zero in on potential disruptors. The same manufacturer makes a scan for schools that assigns pupils an alert level of red, yellow or blue.
By the numbers: China produces 70% of the world's drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar cells, the magazine says, and "deploys more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined, and, in medicine, it has surpassed the United States in the number of registered clinical trials."
- China's shipbuilding capacity is 200 times that of the U.S.
Friction point: China's rulers avoid "overtly antagonizing America, because they believe that, even in decline, it remains uniquely dangerous."
- But Rush Doshi, China specialist at Georgetown and CFR, says that if the U.S. loses the next wave of industries — AI, biotech and robotics — as it lost on solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, "it would irreversibly change the balance of power."
- A think tank at Renmin University of China, in Beijing, published a report called "Thank Trump," which argues that his tariffs, attacks on allies and immigration policies have hastened the "twilight of an empire."
The bottom line: A European diplomat who has attended meetings with Xi Jinping and his advisers told Osnos they're "feeling like the champions of the world."
