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Opinion | How China’s research prowess will shape course of 21st century
China has gone from rice paddy to the world’s factory, but it will complete its modernisation in research labs
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The rise of Chinese research labs is accelerating tech breakthroughs across a broad array of fields. It is leading to a new era of abundance based on cheap energy, new materials and their applications. The US-led tech embargo against China helped jump-start its investment in research. Breakthroughs are accelerating and being turned into efficient scale production. This could be the most important dynamic in shaping the 21st century.
China solved its food self-sufficiency problem in the 1980s with free market reforms in the rural sector. It solved a shortage of manufactured goods in the 2000s by becoming the factory of the world. It must go through research laboratories to achieve technological independence and eventually dominance. China has gone from rice paddy to factory, but it will complete its modernisation in labs.
China spent 3.93 trillion yuan (US$568.8 billion) on research and development last year, accounting for 2.8 per cent of gross domestic product. However, this number still understates the extent of Chinese research. Research spending goes further in China than in the West. For example, the drug research and discovery process costs much more in the United States than in China.
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R&D in China is thus more cost-effective than in the West – by at least five times in my estimation. This would effectively make China’s R&D spending US$2.8 trillion – an unprecedented amount. And China’s pivot to research is far from over.
China’s comprehensive industrial base has proven to be fast in turning research results into products at scale and low cost. For example, sodium ion batteries are going into passenger vehicles for the first time after recent breakthroughs in energy density, durability and temperature resilience. This technology creates abundance by removing the need for scarce elements.
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Supercritical carbon dioxide for power generation is another example. It has already been put into use in China and will soon show if it’s good enough to spread elsewhere. Because it is more efficient and smaller in size compared with existing technologies, in combination with nuclear technology such as the thorium reactor, it can play a critical role in decarbonising transport and reducing shipping costs. China has already succeeded in thorium technology, and the country’s industrial prowess allows technologies to quickly go into use.
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