Overview
Over
the past few decades, China has experienced exponential growth over the past
few, breaching the
fences of a closed economy to evolve into a manufacturing
and exporting hub of the world. Going by its huge manufacturing and export
base, it is often referred to as the “world’s factory”. According to the
Economic Complexity Index (ECI), China is the largest export economy in the
world and the 33rd most complex economy. In 2019, in terms of GDP (PPP), the
Chinese economy was measured at $25.27 trillion and it is expected to stay
above 6% in 2020 (China Press). It is, therefore, based on the aforementioned
that the below listed factors could suggest that 2020 might be a decade for
China’s further global economic expansion.
1)
Tech Manufacturing: In October 2019,
China’s manufacturing sector, which is the backbone of its economy, grew at an
annual rate of 4.7%. High-tech manufacturing centres on technology. High-tech
manufacturing creates the technologies that are indispensable to the nations.
As innovation and new technology increasingly drives this industry more than
others in the manufacturing sector, the Chinese government has set up a $21
billion state-backed fund to boost its manufacturing industry. The new fund
will be invested in corporations working on various areas of technology,
especially next-generation information technology and electrical equipment.
These are part of the 10 priority sectors highlighted by “Made in China 2025”,
a government-led industrial initiative designed to dominate high-tech
industries, including robotics, aerospace and computer chips, amidst the
US-China “trade war”. The Trump administration has frowned at China’s
initiative, criticising Xi Jinping for using the plan to give its country’s
tech companies undue advantage over foreign rivals.
Being
the world’s largest importer and consumer of semiconductors, China has made its
ambition known to dominate the global technology market such as artificial
intelligence and 5G, which is expected to further build up demand for high-end
chips. Currently, the country produces just 16% of the semiconductors, fuelling
its tech boom. However it has plans to produce 40% of all semiconductors it
uses by 2020, and 70% by 2025, an ambitious plan that is unconnected to the
trade dispute with the US.
2) Scientific Research and Discovery:
China’s new political leadership has placed science, technology and
innovation at the frontrunner of the reform of its economic system
(UNESCO Science Report). China has set itself the target of devoting
2.5% of GDP to research and development (R&D) by 2020. Over the past
two decades, the Chinese government has been massively investing in
science. In 2000 the number of Chinese graduates in science and
engineering courses increased from 359,000 to 1.65 million in 2014.
In fact, a UNESCO report showed that
nearly one in five of the world’s researchers resides in China. Between
2007 and 2013, the country saw a meteoric rise in research and
development (R&D) and thereby overtook the U.S in terms of the
number of researchers of any country in the world. The UNESCO Science
Report asserted that China increased its global share of research
spending by 42%, a development which contributes marginally to global
research expenditure (19.6%), even above the global population (19.3%).
China’s researcher density has scaled-up by 11%, near to the world
average in 2013 (1 073) to 1 206 whole-time corresponding researchers
per million inhabitants in 2016 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics).
At
the beginning of the last decade in 2011, Chinese engineers and scientists have
recorded some unprecedented feats. In December 2013, China’s Chang’e 3 became
the first robotic landing on the Moon. Chang’e 3 is a robotic lunar exploration
mission operated by the China National Space Administration, incorporating a
robotic lander and China’s first lunar rover. In September 2014, China’s State
Council disclosed an Energy Development Strategy Action Plan to 2020 that fixes
some strict targets for the development of modern infrastructure. James C. C.
Chan won the 2018 IEEE Transportation Technologies Award for his contributions
to the advancement of electric vehicle technologies. Likewise, in 2017, the
State Council of the People’s Republic of China honoured Pan Jianwei for his
work on quantum optical technology. Equally, toward reaching sustainable global
food safety, Chinese researchers have found a growth-regulating transcription
factor GRF4 that has the opposite effect of a growth-inhibiting protein called
DELLA in crops. GRF4 and DELLA existed in a balance that regulated plant growth
and nitrogen metabolism.
In
2017, the Chinese government spent US$279 billion just on research and
development, a development that showed 70% increase in comparison to its 2012
spending. In the same vein, in 2017, a report by the US National Science
Foundation revealed that China had outshined the US in the number of science
publications. Likewise, Nature Index rated China’s leading scientific
institution, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as the institution with the most
research outputs for the same year, ahead of America’s Harvard University and
Germany’s Max Planck Society.
3)
Number of Registered Patents:
Innovation remains a fundamental source of national and global power. A
country’s aptitude to develop new products and fashion new procedures or
approaches of production automatically enables it to produce and create the
desired goods needed by other countries. Hence innovation promotes
technological advancement creates wealth in divers ways. China’s fast growing
global influence is not unconnected to its innovation. One major way to measure
innovation is through intellectual property (IP) protection in the form of
patents. Patents secure exclusive rights to an invention, and thus offer
insight into key areas of innovation. This feature evaluates the relationship
between patents and innovation by exploring trends in patent applications.
In
2016, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) processed
42.8 % of all patent applications in the world. With over 1.3 million total
applications, China processed 121 % more applications than the U.S. China has
been the main driver of global growth and the main source of growth in
worldwide IP filings in 2018. In 2017, China became one of the top five US
patent recipients for the first time, leaving behind US, Japan, South Korea and
Germany. In 2018, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration
received the highest number of patent applications—a record 1.54 million. The
development amounted to the combined total of the IP offices of other countries
ranked from 2nd to 11th place. According to World Intellectual Property
Organization (Oct 2019), China’s patent applications accounted for almost half
of the global total.
The
number of patents filed in China has sustained a high growth rate throughout
much of the last two decades. A large percentage of this growth in patent
applications stems from a flood of domestic applications, which corresponded
with Xi Jinping’s “Made in China 2025”. The development aims to upgrade key
domestic industries in order to compete with advanced economies in high-tech
sectors. The result of this strategy can be seen by comparing corporate patents
from a global perspective. According to the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO), the two Chinese telecom giants, Huawei and ZTE, have been
the top PCT applicants since 2015, followed by Intel, Mitsubishi, and Qualcomm.
4)
Tech Skills: “For a country like
China, with a population of more than 1.3 billion and a labor force of over 800
million, the issues of employment and human resources development are ones of
important strategic significance,”—Wang Xiaochu, Vice Chairman, Foreign Affairs
Committee, National People’s Congress & Former Vice Minister of Human
Resources and Social Security. Likewise, in 2016, at the World Economic Forum,
Fan Gang, Director of the National Economic Research Institute & Chairman
of the China Reform Foundation, told the audience of some 250 business leaders
that China must not only improve the overall abilities of its people so that
they are equipped with knowledge and skills, but also the ability to adapt to
new technologies.
In
2015, China’s State Council added Artificial Intelligence (AI) to its Internet
Plus Initiative, a programme designed to modernise and transform traditional
industries. In 2017, Chinese government unveiled the details of a three-stage
road map designed to make China a world leader in AI by 2030. It is obvious
that the Chinese government is determined to reshape the national skills development
system in order to reduce the skills discrepancy, encourage waged and
self-employment for young people and mobilise different ways of learning in
order to cope with the need for highly skilled workers.
5)
Vocational Skill Capacity: One of
the reasons that makes China a manufacturing superpower is its aggressive
policy on Vocational Education and Training (VET) system. China has various
laws that encourage VET. The Vocational
Educational Law of 1996, which mandates nine years of compulsory education,
lays out a clear design for implementation of VET.
Technical
and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is mainly provided for in the
Vocational Education Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted in 1996. It
contains regulations on vocational school education at various levels and on
vocational education in various forms. Also, Private Education Promotion Law of
the People’s Republic of China (adopted in 2002) establishes non-public schools
that mainly provide vocational skills, including training for vocational
qualifications. National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and
Development of the People’s Republic of China (2010-2020): outlines development
priorities in all forms of education including TVET. Decision of the State
Council on Accelerating the Development of Modern Vocational Education (issued
in 2014): the government should guide the transformation of a batch of general
undergraduate education institutes towards applied technology higher education
institutes, improve enterprise participation mechanisms, and require teachers
to possess both teaching qualification and vocational qualification. Equally,
Planning for Building Modern Vocational Education System (2014-2020) sets the
strategic short-term and long-term goals of establishing a modern vocational
education system, including improvement on the legal system and standardization
system of Chinese vocational education. In addition, as stated in the
Vocational Education Law of the People’s Republic of China an enterprise shall,
in light of its actual conditions, provide systematic vocational education and
training for its own employees and for persons to be employed
6)
Military Mind: It is not uncommon
that China and the US are rivals in many ways, especially the quest for global
dominant. As the two countries are in races to develop and commercialise deep
learning and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, it appears that
China is not taking it slow to surpass the US.
China is on the fast track to increase its capacities in AI and autonomy
to military weapons systems.
China
has set a goal of 2020 as the date to achieve what its terms “mechanisation”
and “informisation”. Quite what China means by this is latter term is unclear,
but Beijing has been watching the developing role of information in warfare and
seeking to adapt this to its own particular circumstances. Chinese weapons
manufacturers already are selling armed drones with significant amounts of
combat autonomy.” From ultra-long-range conventional ballistic missiles to
fifth generation fighter jets, China’s progress and technical abilities are
outstanding.
In
April 2017, China launched its first domestically built aircraft carrier. China
is developing a very long-range air-to-air missile designed specifically to
strike at tanker and command and control aircraft that now orbit out of harm’s
way. The development is known as “fifth generation fighter”. It incorporates
stealth technology and has a supersonic cruising speed; it is highly integrated
avionics.
It
has been reported that China’s air-to-air missile developments by 2020 will
likely force the US and its regional allies to re-examine not only their
tactics, but also techniques, procedures and the direction of their own
combat-aerospace development programmes.
The
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS, London) Military Balance
once reported that China has sold its armed UAVs to a number of countries,
including Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and
Myanmar, among others. The US and Western arms exporters see China as a growing
commercial threat. China is, however, willing to enter markets which many
Western manufacturers, or their governments.
China
is also trying to develop weaponry tailor-made to specifically for African
countries, whose roads and infrastructural deficits would not be able to cope
with many of the heavier models offered by others.
7)
Innovation: In June 2016, speaking
at the national congress of the China Association for Science and Technology,
Chinese president Xi Jinping outlined his vision for China to become the
leading global leader in innovation, especially in science and technology by
2030. According to him “Great scientific and technological capacity is a must
for China to be strong and for people’s lives to improve. China and, even
humankind, won’t do without innovation nor will it do if the innovation is
carried out slowly.”
In
agriculture, Crop science is an essential component of agricultural science and
also the key to ensuring world food security, stimulating sustainable
utilisation of agricultural resources, and effectively protecting agricultural
environments. Statistics has shown that China now produces 25% of the world’s
food, feeding about 22% of the world’s population with 9% of the world’s arable
land, and has completed the transition from a food-aid recipient country to a
food-aid donor.
Furthermore,
China is poised not just to lead in autonomous vehicles but to dominate this
emerging global market in the decades ahead. According to an annual report on
the nation’s innovation economy by the South China Morning Post, China is
likely to emerge as the world’s largest market for autonomous vehicles and
mobility services, worth more than $500 billion by 2030.
In
July 2017, China’s State Council issued the “New Generation Artificial
Intelligence Development Plan,” outlining an ambitious roadmap for China to
lead the artificial intelligence sector, with a priority on the development of
AVs as a “strategic frontier.” Five months later, the Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology (MIIT) enhanced the roadmap by announcing the Three-Year
Plan for Promoting Development of a New Generation Artificial Intelligence
Industry (2018–2020). The action plan includes plans to develop key technological
components of AVs, such as automotive smart chips, vehicle intelligence
algorithms, and advanced driver assistant systems.
In
2018, China sold more electric cars than in the rest of the world combined. The
Chinese government has spent nearly $60 billion in the last decade to create an
industry that builds electric cars, while also reducing the number of licenses
available for gasoline-powered cars to increase demand for electric cars. China
now has more than 100 electric-car makers, along with hundreds of additional
companies that supply components for electric cars. Also, in 2018, China set an
economic-policy designed to have half the new cars on China’s roads be
partially or fully autonomous by the end of 2020.
Autonomous
vehicles (AVs) are revving up in China. Companies in China and around the world
want to tap into the lucrative autonomous technology market that could reach
$2.3 trillion by 2030. More than 30 key standards that are critical to advanced
driver-assistance systems and low-level autonomous driving will be defined by
2020 and a system of over 100 standards for higher level autonomous driving
will be set by 2025.
In
addition, China is now the world’s No. 1 investor in renewable energy, and the
largest-ever floating solar plant. The $151 million Three Gorges project can
power 94,000 homes at full capacity, located on an old coal mine in the eastern
province of Anhui. Also, in February 2018, China launched the world’s first
autonomous passenger drone took in Lianyungang. The Ehang 284 is capable of
flying at speeds of up to 80 miles per hour. In the same vein, China is set to
launch the world’s largest Waste-to-Energy Plant when it becomes operational in
2020. The plant will burn a third of the sprawling city’s waste and power up to
100,000 homes.
In
April 2018, researchers at Tongji University announced the world’s first lung
regeneration therapy, a great medical feat that could transform the lives of
people living with lung disease; the stem-cell treatment uses mice cells to
regenerate damaged lung tissue. China is also the first country in the world to
create the first forest city designed to curb the challenge of global air
pollution. The verdant urban area in Guangxi Province will boast 40,000 trees
capable of absorbing 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
8)
Quantum Physics: Quantum physics is
a world-changer technology. A technology called quantum encryption is the dream
of perfectly secure communication, which is increasingly becoming a reality. In
other words, quantum encryption is a technology that makes it impossible to
hack or overhear communications. The phenomenal technology could help free the
world from online scam, cyber-attacks and electronic eavesdropping. In a world
of unbreakable encryption, all human electronic communication could become
entirely private.
On
September 29, 2017, a team of cryptographers and physicists from the Chinese
Academy of Sciences held a half-hour video call with their counterparts in
Vienna, using quantum encryption. While experts’ reports say that the major
technical innovations in quantum technology are still being produced in such
Western institutions as IBM in Armonk, New York, the University of California
and the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, China appears to be
the only country that is ahead of others in terms of implementation. So, it is
not a happenstance that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the U.S.
Department of Defense are the biggest investors in quantum encryption.
According to reports, at least 600 top Chinese ministers and military officials
use quantum-encrypted links for all confidential communications.
A
Chinese manned space station, planned for 2022, is scheduled to carry an
experimental quantum-communications payload that human operators can maintain
and upgrade. The ultimate goal is a set of geostationary satellites that span
the world. So far, only China has invested the billions of dollars needed to
bring quantum encryption to real-world use. It is clear that any country in the
world that is serious about establishing fully secure communications would need
to commit huge sums to the development. “Whoever controls information controls
the world”—Artur Ekert, a professor at the University of Oxford and inventor of
the model on which the Chinese based their system. Based on that saying, it
appears the future of quantum physics belong to China.
9)
Mass Transportation Technology: The
US President, Donald Trump, once admitted that China is beating the US on
everything. If Trump’s admission of China’s superiority is something to go by,
one of the areas where China is actually beating the US is in the area of
resilient transportation systems. Resilient transportation can be fueled by
multiple energy sources. The system can run on electricity powered by the sun
or the wind. Thus it uses fossil fuels sparingly, which helps to lessen climate
change, reduce future disasters that may threaten transportation infrastructure
or fuel sources.
China’s
Five-Year Plan calls for five million electric and hybrid cars on the road by
2020. In 2015, the Chinese bought 188,000 electric vehicles (EVs). China’s EV
market is growing faster than in other countries. Equally, electric buses are
on the rise. Converting buses to electric power reduces particulate matter thereby
providing health benefits to global population. More than 100,000 electric
buses, which equates one-fifth of the country’s total, are on China’s roads. At
this rate, China’s entire bus fleet could be electric by 2025. With new models
that can charge in just 10 seconds and run for 5 km on a single charge, it is
clear that China is ahead of the innovation on the bus technology.
Also,
in China, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems moves over 4.3 million people every
day in comparison to less than 500,000 in the U.S. In Changzhou, 25% of
commuters use BRT. The Bus Rapid Transit is much cheaper to construct than
light rail or metro rail, and can offer the same level of service. The most
successful BRT systems use designated centre lanes, so buses can move smoothly
from station to station without having to compete with automobile traffic.
In
today’s interconnected world, easy transportation within and outside cities
cannot be overemphasised. High-Speed Rail (HSR) systems are capable of covering
distances that cannot be covered by city buses or metro lines. Also, HSR
contributes to urban resilience and it can help people’s movement in times of
disaster or out of harm’s way. By designing integrated transit systems, China’s
high-speed rail network and its inter-city transit systems are connected in
almost every city. By 2020, over 50% of new vehicles produced in China will
have Driver Assistance (DA), Partial Automation (PA), or Conditional Automation
(CA) systems, with over 10% connected to an Advanced Driver Assistance System
(ADAS).
China
provides great success stories on how to develop and scale resilient
transportation systems. The commercial use of 5G wireless technologies will
accelerate its industrial application. China is building a floating train (new
magnetic levitation, MAGLEV) that could be faster than air travel. China’s
fastest bullet trains currently travel at speeds of over 600 km/h is new
high-speed train designed to carry passengers at a speed of 600 to 800kp
kilometers per hour. The super-fast train is set to roll off the production
line in 2020 while it is set to go into commercial production in 2021. There
are also plans for maglev trains to halve the journey time from Tokyo to Osaka
by 2045. It is important African leaders, particularly Nigeria, should take a
cue from China and mobilise Nigerians’ ingenuity to build our own resilient
transportation systems for the 21st century.
10)
Urban Development: Going by the
speed of economic development in China, it is clear that urbanisation is one of
the driving forces that is fostering the Chinese economy in recent time. There
is no doubt that economic activities in the cities will invariably have huge
impact on the economic well-being of the entire country. Recently, China
indicated that urbanisation would be a priority in its agenda in the next
decade.
Historically,
statistics has showed that there is a strong relationship between the
percentage of the population that is engaged in agriculture and the country’s
per capita GDP. In other words, what happens in Chinese cities is critical to
the country’s economic development in terms of environmental sustainability.
By
2010, the urban share of the population had grown to 45% and it is projected to
reach 70% by 2030. According to reports, “By 2030, up to 70% of the Chinese
population will be living in cities”—“Urban China: Toward Efficient, Inclusive
and Sustainable Urbanization”, Klaus Rohland, World Bank Country Director for
China. The Urban China: Toward Efficient, Inclusive and Sustainable
Urbanization, includes six priority areas for a new model of urbanisation:
•Reforming land management and institutions
•Reforming
the hukou household-registration system to provide equal access to quality
services for all citizens and create a more mobile and versatile labor force
•Placing
urban finances on a more sustainable footing, while creating financial
discipline for local governments•Reforming urban planning and design
•Managing environmental pressures
•Improving local governance
•Samuel is a Senior Partner, Sensale Research Limited
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