The U.S. May Be Overstating China’s Technological Prowess

Johanna M. Costigan & Jeffrey Ding
China’s technological prowess is frequently invoked by U.S. policymakers hoping to get votes, attention, or enough bipartisan support to pass a bill. Competition with China was a central motivating factor in federal legislation like the CHIPS and...

Excerpts

09.06.22

The American-Trained Rocket Scientist Who Shaped China’s Surveillance System

Josh Chin & Liza Lin
The role Qian Xuesen would play in propelling China into a technological and ideological clash with the United States seems almost fated in retrospect. Born in Hangzhou in 1911, the year China’s last dynasty crumbled, Qian had traveled to the United...

Viewpoint

04.08.22

Closing the U.S. to Chinese Biotech Would Do Far More Harm Than Good

Scott Moore & Abigail Coplin
Biotechnology intrinsically blurs boundaries between science and commerce, market and state, the global and the national, and even personal privacy and collective interest. Progress depends more heavily in biotech than in other high-tech industries...

Chinese Medicine in the Covid Wards

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
In mid-February 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, Liu Lihong, a slight man with a wispy beard, made his way into Hankou Hospital No. 8 in Wuhan. Dressed in an all-white infectious disease suit, the only equipment he carried...

Viewpoint

04.27.21

The Right Way to Bring Chinese STEM Talent Back to the U.S.

Evan Burke
The Trump administration deployed a raft of restrictions on international students and workers, many of which directly targeted or disproportionally impacted Chinese STEM talent. While some measures had a basis in legitimate concerns like illicit...

Conversation

02.12.21

Will China Be a Global Vaccine Leader?

Deborah Seligsohn, Jenny Lei Ravelo & more
Beijing stands to reap major rewards by becoming the supplier of choice—or necessity—throughout low- and middle-income countries. China has expanded its international aid efforts in recent years and stressed its commitment to “south-south”...

Reports

11.17.20

Meeting the China Challenge: A New American Strategy for Technology Competition

Asia Society
Is China or the U.S. ahead in artificial intelligence? What is the best way to counter security threats in 5G technology? How do we best maintain American leadership positions in fundamental research and biotechnology?

Conversation

03.19.20

As Its Coronavirus Outbreak Abates, China Is Trying out a New Look. Is It Working?

Daniel R. Russel, Pamela Kyle Crossley & more
As the coronavirus spreads globally, China’s government is working aggressively to change its international image. In the span of just a few weeks, China has gone from the embattled epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic to presenting the country as...

Viewpoint

03.18.20

‘This Is Not Forensic Genetics Anymore. This Is Surveillance.’

Jessica Batke
Yves Moreau, a professor specializing in human clinical genomics, had been emailing with Promega since 2016, warning its communications department first about how Promega’s products might be used in a proposed DNA databasing project in Kuwait, and...

Conversation

01.08.20

China: The Year Ahead

David Schlesinger, Scott Kennedy & more
As 2019 drew to a close, ChinaFile asked contributors to write about their expectations for China in 2020.

Conversation

08.01.19

How Should the U.S. Government Treat Chinese Students in America?

Siqi Tu, Mary Gallagher & more
The State Department’s top education official Marie Royce gave a speech entitled “The United States Welcomes Chinese Students.” In it, she quoted recent remarks from Donald Trump, who said, “We want to have Chinese students come and use our great...

Postcard

05.30.19

Four Is Forbidden

Yangyang Cheng
Liusi. Six-four. The two-syllable word, spoken nonchalantly by our teacher, was a stone cast into the tranquil pond of a classroom. From each ripple rose a gasp, a murmur, or a perplexed face, with only one or two enunciating the question on many of...

Viewpoint

12.21.18

A Look Back at China in 2018

Kyle Hutzler
In 2018, the outlook for China regarding its politics, economy, and relationship with the United States darkened considerably. The removal of presidential term limits and Xi Jinping’s interactions with the Trump administration prompted rare...

Conversation

11.27.18

How to Be a Chinese Scientist without Being China’s Scientist

Yangyang Cheng, Yu He & more
As trade tensions between the United States and China worsen, a new technological cold war looms, casting its shadow over American universities and research institutions. How should individual scientists of Chinese origin decide whether to accept a...

Viewpoint

10.05.18

Banning Chinese Students is Not in the U.S. National Interest

Chang Chiu & Thomas Kellogg
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to radically revamp America’s immigration policies. Indeed, his family separation policies, which sparked nationwide protests and public revulsion after they were rolled out in May 2018, were...

Infographics

08.15.18

Visualizing China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign

“Catching Tigers and Flies” is ChinaFile’s interactive tool for tracking and, we hope, better understanding the massive campaign against corruption that Xi Jinping launched shortly after he came to power in late 2012. It is designed to give users a sense of the scope and character of the anti-corruption campaign by graphically rendering information about more than 2,000 of its targets whose cases have been publicly announced in official Chinese sources.

China Has Outspent the US by $24 Billion in 5G Technology since 2015, Study Shows

Arjun Kharpal
CNBC
China has in recent years outspent the U.S. by $24 billion in the area of next-generation mobile internet technology known as 5G, potentially creating a "tsunami" that will be difficult to catch up with,...

From a Space Station in Argentina, China Expands Its Reach in Latin America

Ernesto Londoño
New York Times
The giant antenna rises from the desert floor like an apparition, a gleaming metal tower jutting 16 stories above an endless wind-whipped stretch of Patagonia. The 450-ton device, with its hulking dish embracing the open skies, is the centerpiece of...

Here’s What We Know about China’s Future Space Station

Echo Huang
Quartz
China’s going to start sending parts of its future space station into space as soon as 2020, with the aim of having it up and running by 2022.

OneSpace Launches China’s First Private Rocket

Michelle Toh and Serenitie Wang
CNN
OneSpace, a startup based in Beijing, on Thursday became the country’s first private company to launch its own rocket.

White House Considers Restricting Chinese Researchers over Espionage Fears

Ana Swanson and Keith Bradsher
New York Times
U.S. may bar Chinese from sensitive research at universities and research institutes.

Will China Beat the World to Nuclear Fusion and Clean Energy?

Stephen McDonell
BBC
In a world with an ever-increasing demand for electricity and a deteriorating environment, Chinese scientists are leading the charge to develop what some see as the holy grail of energy.

The Rise and Fall of Tiangong-1, China’s First Space Station

Jonathan Corum
New York Times
China’s first space station burned up over the South Pacific on April 1.

T-Minus One Week until China’s Space Lab Crashes to Earth. Here’s What It Will Look Like.

Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Amy B Wang
Washington Post
The out-of-control space lab is expected to plummet to earth in a week.

Stephen Hawking: China’s Love for the Late Physicist

Tessa Wong
BBC
As the world mourns Prof Stephen Hawking, who has died aged 76, there has been a particular outpouring of emotion in China, where the visionary physicist was revered by scientists, students, the state and even boy band stars.

China Tests Giant Air Cleaner to Combat Smog

David Cyranoski
Nature
A 60-metre-high chimney stands among a sea of high-rise buildings in one of China’s most polluted cities.

China’s Caves Are Hiding Plants That Exist Nowhere Else in the World

Amanda Erickson
Washington Post
At first glance, a cave doesn’t seem the likeliest home for exotically lush flora. It’s dark, damp and dingy, more likely to host sparkly stalagmites than bristly bushes.

China Wants to Make a Mark in Space—but It’ll Need a Little Help

Sarah Scoles
Wired
In a China Global Television Network video from 2003, taikonaut Yang Liwei leans back in his orbital capsule, the overstuffed stripes of his spacesuit legs filling the frame. His helmet shield is up, so the viewer can gaze into his eyes as he speaks...

China Is Placing Underwater Sensors in the Pacific near Guam

Anthony Kuhn
NPR
China’s official People’s Daily newspaper reported in December that Chinese scientists had lowered acoustic sensors into the Mariana Trench, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Philippines’ Duterte Reneges on China Deal, Bans Foreign Research Ships

Manuel Mogato
Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned all foreign scientific research off the country’s Pacific coast and told the navy to chase away unauthorised vessels, despite earlier allowing Chinese oceanographers to operate there.

Yes, They’ve Cloned Monkeys in China. That Doesn’t Mean You’re Next.

Gina Kolata
New York Times
Researchers in China reported on Wednesday that they have created two cloned monkeys, the first time that primates have been cloned with the technique that produced Dolly the sheep more than 20 years ago.

Conversation

01.18.18

Are China’s Blue Skies Here to Stay?

Li Shuo, Angel Hsu & more
In mid-January, the environmental group Greenpeace announced dramatic improvements in air quality across China. In 74 Chinese cities, measurements of PM2.5, the fine particles that have been a major contributor to the country’s choked skies,...

China on pace for Record Solar-Power Installations

Bloomberg News
Bloomberg
China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, is poised to install a record amount of solar-power capacity this year, prompting researchers to boost forecasts as much as 80 percent.

China Suddenly Has Way More of the World's Most Powerful Computers Than the US

Echo Huang
Quartz
China has surpassed the US by a record margin—nearly 60—to become the nation with the most supercomputers, according to the latest Top 500 survey,

Viewpoint

11.03.17

The Future of Particle Physics Will Live and Die in China

Yangyang Cheng from Foreign Policy
“Don’t you dare kill my project.”My phone interview with a senior official at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) had started with bland, yet polite, responses. But it took a sharp turn toward audible agitation and hostility as I raised my final...

Tiangong-1: Chinese Space Station Will Crash to Earth within Months

Michael Slezak
Guardian
The Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace” lab was launched in 2011 and described as a “potent political symbol” of China, part of an ambitious scientific push to turn China into a space superpower.

Europe Is Designing a New Particle Collider to Take on China

Jeremy Kahn and Thomas Mulier
Bloomberg
CERN, the European nuclear physics research organization, is contemplating the development of a particle accelerator three times larger than the Large Hadron Collider that confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, a move intended to match growing...

China Rushes to Surpass U.S. In Decoding Citizens' Genes

Preetika Rana
Wall Street Journal
In this western Chinese city famed for panda conservation, scientists are advancing the world’s most ambitious effort to save a far less-endangered species: humans.

China Brings Mars a Little Closer with Replica on Tibet Plateau

Tom Philips
Guardian
The “simulated Mars station” – a 95,000 square-kilometre tribute to the solar system’s second-smallest planet – will be built in Qinghai province’s Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan autonomous prefecture, not far from the westernmost tip of the Great Wall.

China to Rev up Bullet Train Revolution with World's Fastest Service on Shanghai-Beijing Line

Sarah Zheng
South China Morning Post
China will soon start official operation of the world’s fastest train service, knocking an hour off the 1,318km journey between Beijing and Shanghai.

SoftBank Partners with China’s Ofo to Bring Its Dock-Less Bikes to Japan

Jon Russell
TechCrunch
A month after committing to help WeWork enter Japan, SoftBank is lending a hand to another global unicorn with its sights set on the country. Today, it announced a tie-in that will bring Ofo’s dock-less bike rental service to Japanese soil.

Environment

08.02.17

Crowded Beijing Revives Old Plan for New Overflow City

from chinadialogue
On April 1, 2017—April Fool’s Day—the government made a surprise announcement that a satellite city bigger than New York would be built from scratch on the outskirts of Beijing. Official news site Xinhua described Xiong’an New District as the “plan...

Skeletons of 5,000-Year-Old Chinese ‘Giants’ Discovered by Archaeologists

Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith
Independent
Archaeologists in eastern China have found 5,000-year-old skeletons of people experts say would have been unusually tall and strong.

The U.S. and China Spend Millions Fighting Malaria in Africa, So Why Don’t They Work Together?

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Both the United States and People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fight malaria in Africa. A pair of experts at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia contend that if the U.S. and P.R.C. stopped working in...

China’s Ill, and Wealthy, Look Abroad for Medical Treatment

Sui-Lee Wee
New York Times
Hospitals and a new generation of medical tourism companies are luring well-heeled Chinese patients away from an overburdened health care system.

Why China’s New Cargo Space Ship Is So Important

Namrata Goswami
Diplomat
China’s first indigenously built Tianzhou cargo ship, which is being launched between April 20 and 24, is a major accomplishment.

China’s Fosun Big on Expanding in Pharma

CBS News
Chinese conglomerate Fosun International will remain on the lookout for investment opportunities in the West amid concerns in the market over capital controls and debt levels, according to the company’s chairman.

China’s Secret Plan to Crush SpaceX and the US Space Program

Clay Dillow
CNBC
China’s breakneck economic expansion may be flagging, but the country's ambitions in space show no signs of slowing down.

China’s Tencent Bought A 5 Percent Stake in Tesla

Johana Bhuiyan
Re/code
Tencent, a Chinese internet giant, is also an investor in Chinese ride-hail player Didi Chuxing.

A Bigger Catch: China’s Fishing Fleet Hunts New Ocean Targets

Lucy Hornby
Financial Times
Seagulls wheel and cry around the Caleta Portales fishing pier in the Chilean port of Valparaíso while sea lions loiter in the waves.

China Developing Manned Space Mission to the Moon: State Media

David Reid
CNBC
China is building a manned spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the moon as well as near-Earth orbit flight, according to Chinese state media./

China’s Plan to Build Its Own High-Tech Industries Worries Western Businesses

Keith Bradsher and Paul Mozur
New York Times
China has charted out a $300 billion plan to become nearly self-sufficient by 2025 in a range of important industries, from planes to computer chips to electric cars, as it looks to kick-start its next stage of economic development. 

Scientists Discover Prehistoric Giant Otter Species in China

Merrit Kennedy
NPR
Six million years ago, giant otters weighing more than 100 pounds lived among birds and water lilies in the wooded wetlands of China’s Yunnan province.

After 1,000 Year Slumber, China Vows to Invent Again

Eva Dou
Wall Street Journal
Beijing spends billions on moonshot projects, hoping to shake off its reputation as a copycat economy and curb dependence on foreign powers

Silicon Valley’s Culture, Not Its Companies, Dominates in China

Paul Mozur
New York Times
Looking to break from a rigid workplace culture, Silicon Valley has captured the minds of China’s young entrepreneurs and investors

Reports

11.30.16

Made in China 2025

Jost Wübbeke, Mirjam Meissner, Max J. Zenglein, Jaqueline Ives, and Björn Conrad
Jost Wübbeke & Mirjam Meissner
Mercator Institute for China Studies
This report analyses China’s ambitious plan to build one of the world’s most advanced and competitive economies with the help of innovative manufacturing technologies (“smart manufacturing”). China’s industrial master plan “Made in China 2025” aims...

Castro’s Death a Reminder in China of Changed Communist Axis

Gerry Shih Associated Press
Washington Post
China and Cuba frequently nod to their shared ideological history, but relations revolve more around developing beach resorts or Chinese telecoms investments

China Space Program: Two Astronauts Return to Earth After Monthlong Tiangong-2 Stay

Avaneesh Pandey
International Business Times
The astronauts spent 30 days in the space lab, where they carried out medical and scientific experiments, and tested the complex’s habitability

Smog May be Easing, but in Parts of China Water Quality Worsens

David Stanway and Sue-Lin Wong
Reuters
Despite commitments to crack down on polluters, the quality of water in China's rivers, lakes and reservoirs in several regions has deteriorated significantly