Industrial Policy

China’s state sets goals, takes risks, and builds scale, while firms compete and innovate—an integrated system the market-driven U.S. struggles to match.

Transplanting China’s 5G System into America’s Ideology Wall

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This thought experiment transplants China’s 5G “national system engineering” playbook—characterized by centralized planning, coordinated industrial policy, and state-directed capital—into a U.S. institutional setting to test whether an equivalent nationwide 5G rebuild could occur. On technical grounds, the exercise assumes feasibility: spectrum can be allocated, infrastructure standardized, supply chains secured, and deployment accelerated at scale. The … Read more

From 1G to 5G: Strategic Rivalry Over Telecom Ecosystems

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The evolution from 1G to 5G reflects a sustained three-way strategic contest among China, the United States, and Europe, in which technological standards serve as the fulcrum, industrial ecosystems as the primary arena, and national strategies as critical support. Rather than a linear process of technical upgrading, this trajectory unfolds through distinct phases—from dependence, to … Read more

China’s Distinct 4G/5G Path and Its Role in US-Tech Rivalry

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China’s 4G/5G development has followed a distinctive three-pronged evolutionary path integrating institutions, technology, and markets. Shaped by strong state leadership, system-level integration, scenario-driven development, and ecosystem collaboration, this model contrasts sharply with the market- and capital-driven approaches of Europe and the United States, as well as the conglomerate-centered industrial trajectories of Japan and South Korea, … Read more

From Japan’s Decline to Lessons for China–US Tech Rivalry

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The collective decline of Japanese home appliance companies in the Chinese market exemplifies industrial competition and structural transformation. This predicament highlights that, amid dramatic technological paradigm shifts, superior operational efficiency alone—when detached from scenario awareness and ecosystem integration—can become a constraint on adaptation and transformation. Strategic Misjudgments and Slow Market Response Japanese home appliance companies, … Read more

Why China’s Civilizational Resurgence Reframes U.S. Rivalry

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China’s revival is plausible not because of inevitability, but because it rests on durable structural advantages: long civilizational continuity, a large and mobilizable population, a developmental state capable of intervention, and a unifying national narrative shaped by the “century of humiliation.” These features confer a degree of resilience that many historically declining powers lacked. Yet … Read more

Why U.S.–China Cold War Fails to Mirror U.S.–Soviet Success

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The United States’ effort to frame contemporary tensions with China as a “new Cold War” has not generated the strategic leverage Washington once held over the Soviet Union. Although U.S. policy since the late 2010s has drawn heavily from the earlier playbook—tightened technology controls, mobilized alliances, and sharpened ideological language—the impact has been far more … Read more

China EV 2035 Forecast: Lessons from History as a Mirror

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From the moment the Duryea brothers built the first American automobile in 1895, more than 1,900 registered automakers emerged within five years—most evolving from horse-drawn carriage workshops and relying on handcrafted production, with 99% manufacturing fewer than 100 vehicles a year. Yet by 1908, only 253 remained, as Ford’s Model T and its breakthrough in … Read more

China’s Internet Firms Lead Through Combinatorial Innovation

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Chinese internet companies are known for rapidly absorbing successful ideas from competitors and integrating them into their own ecosystems, a practice that significantly accelerates product iteration and industry-wide innovation. By contrast, major American technology firms often respect relatively fixed “spheres of influence,” which can slow the pace of cross-platform evolution. Against this backdrop, Elon Musk … Read more

China vs. U.S. in Global AI: A Panoramic Strengths Duel

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The global competition in artificial intelligence between China and the United States has evolved into a comprehensive contest of education systems, industrial ecosystems, computing infrastructure, and application-driven innovation. A revealing window into China’s strategic thinking emerged from the minutes of a meeting between Ren Zhengfei and the ICPC chairman, coaches, and award-winning contestants, published on … Read more

Selective Decoupling and China’s Path to Tech Power

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In November 2025, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei remarked at a meeting with winners of the International Collegiate Programming Contest that the United States “only forbids Huawei from using anything containing American elements; it does not mean it forbids China from using them.” Though understated, the comment precisely captures a widely misunderstood reality of the Sino-US … Read more