Piers Tang 1. A World in Transition: Language, Safety, and the Anxiety of Prediction In an era marked by global instability, anxiety about safety and the future has taken on new dimensions. In October 2023, Canadian professor Gad Saad posted a provocative message on X, urging Jews worldwide to consider learning Cantonese or Mandarin, suggesting China might … Read more
Why does the United States produce far fewer STEM engineers than China—and why does this make reshoring manufacturing so hard? 1. Bridging the Massive Engineering Pipeline Gap The engineering pipeline gap is both real and enormous. China produces approximately 1.3–1.5 million engineering graduates annually, while the United States graduates only around 200,000 across all BS, … Read more
At the heart of China’s semiconductor strategy is a defining strategic dilemma: Is lasting security secured by building a system in which others rely on you — or by removing your reliance on them? This is not a theoretical policy discussion. It directly concerns economic resilience, technological sovereignty, military security, bargaining power in geopolitics, and … Read more
“Central bank independence” is widely treated as a neutral, rational, and universally valid institutional principle. In reality, it is a historically contingent governance choice, born out of a specific crisis in the 1970s, closely aligned with neoliberal ideology, and disproportionately attentive to financial stability over real economic development. Empirical history does not show a linear … Read more
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, argued that the United States must strategically manage the Eurasian continent—the “grand chessboard”—to preserve its global dominance. In it, Brzezinski outlined a detailed plan for U.S. hegemony, emphasizing the control of key regions, the prevention of rival coalitions, and the careful balancing … Read more
I. Eurasian Core Advantage: China’s Structural Centrality within the World Island The British geographer Halford Mackinder famously described Afro-Eurasia as the “World Island” in 1904—the largest continuous landmass on earth and the locus of most of the world’s population, resources, and economic activity. His geopolitical insight was structural rather than episodic: power gravitates toward those … Read more
Despite the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, driven by the collapse of the Soviet Union, similar unification has not occurred on the Korean Peninsula or across the Taiwan Strait. While Germany’s reunification was facilitated by internal collapse, external consent, and strategic alignment, the divisions in Korea and Taiwan remain due to a … Read more
The phrase “global steel surplus” sounds straightforward. But steel is not a normal commodity like shoes or smartphones. It is foundational infrastructure, strategic capacity, and industrial DNA. To understand why China continues to develop its steel industry, we need to separate several layers of the issue: I. “Surplus” Is Relative — Global Demand Is Structurally … Read more
The technology sector is fast-moving and fiercely competitive, constantly reshaped by innovation, evolving markets, and disruptive newcomers. For Western giants such as Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft, long-term success increasingly hinges on strategic foresight—the ability to anticipate competitive threats, prioritize high-value opportunities, and avoid being stuck in low-margin markets dominated by Chinese firms. The key insight … Read more
Over the past thirty years, China’s communications industry has experienced one of the most profound structural transformations seen anywhere in the global economy. From fewer than 5 million mobile subscribers in the early 1990s to nearly 1.8 billion mobile SIM cards by December 2025, the sector has expanded beyond its origins as a basic public … Read more