April 22, 2025 • 26 mins
Here’s a preview of a new audiobook, Global Tech Wars: China’s Race to Dominate. For decades, China’s economic rise has been symbolized by its unstoppable force of low-cost manufacturing. Now, it’s the leading country in cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, surveillance technology, and more.
In Global Tech Wars, Financial Times’ veteran journalist James Kynge analyzes China’s rapid technological ascent and what it means for the future. If you like what you hear, find the full audiobook at Pushkin, Audible, Spotify, or wherever you get your audiobooks.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hey, it's Nate and Maria.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We're dropping by today to share an excerpt from a
new audiobook we think you'll find very interesting. It's called
Global Tech Wars, China's Race to Dominate, and it's about
how China's innovation is reshaping the global balance of power.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
For decades, China's economic rise has been symbolized by the
unstoppable force of its low cost manufacturing. And now China
is among the leading countries and cutting edge industries like AI,
electric vehicles, surveillance technology and more. When that comes a
new and disruptive wave of competition, one that threatens not
just Western manufacturing but also the West geopolitical dominance.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
In Global Tech Wars, Financial Times veteran journalist James King
not only analyzes China's rapid technological ascent, but what it
means for the future.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Drawing on deep research, exclusive interviews, and first hand insights,
King impacts the seismic shifts already underway, shifts that will
redefine economies, industries, and global power structures in the years ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Here's an excerpt of Global Tech Wars. If you want
to hear more, find Global Tech Wars from Pushkin Industries
and the ft at Pushkin dot Fm, slash audiobooks on Audible, Spotify,
or wherever you get your audiobooks.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Chapter one, shun Jun Speed in the heart of shun Jun,
a city in southern China, is the district of Hua
Chiangbi and it's home to the biggest electronics market in
the world. Yeah, it's a vast warren of stalls selling
(02:18):
every kind of electronic component under the sun. So we're
standing in the middle of one of the Huai Chanbi
electronics markets and the scene is really quite impressive. It's
basically one stall after another. There's hundreds of stalls here.
I mean there's just piles of electronic components on top
(02:41):
of each other in a very higgeldy piggledy way. It
looks like a rather eccentric hardware shop where you know
that you're selling everything, but you're not quite sure where
anything is.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So we have signal generators, we have multimeters, lots of
different kinds of multimeters. Obviously any micro controller you could
possibly want.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
And in the market, I met Noah's Zerkin. He's a
tech inventor from the US and he's chosen to innovate
new products, not back home in America, but here in
shun Jerns's inductors. For him, the electronics market is an
Aladdin's cave of potential treasures.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
USB con actors of every sort, including some rather exotic ones.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And these ones have here with lots of like brass
looking nodules coming out of them.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
It's something that I've actually been looking before it for
close to a year. A suitable punch.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yes, So what kind of products could you build with
the components that we can find in these markets here?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Everything from consumer electronics devices to robots, drones, military systems,
to maybe even space systems. Right, you can build anything
using the components here, Yes, I mean it's such a
(04:18):
tough question because you can literally build anything.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
For decades, this part of China was known as the
electronics workshop of the world. But these days shun Jen
doesn't just make other people's technology. It's building its own
Chinese tech, and in the process, China is emerging as
a tech innovator on a course to overtake the US
(04:47):
as the most important technology power in the world. We're
here in shun Jen. We're standing by a busy road
(05:07):
intersection surrounded by a forest of enormous skyscrapers, glass and
metal buildings reaching all the way down this long avenue. Cars, taxis,
even motorbikes riding on the pavements around us. Pretty much
in the center of this vast metropolis, Shunjun is known
(05:28):
as the Silicon Valley of China, and it's changed dramatically
in the last few decades. About twenty years ago, shun
Jurn and the cities around it in the polar of
the Delta made a name for themselves by mostly manufacturing
other countries technologies and maybe copying it as well. But
(05:49):
now we're on the brink of a really totally different
new era. These days, Chinese companies are making their own brands,
innovating their own technology, and selling that to Europe, America
and all over the rest of the world. Shun John
is home to some of the biggest names in Chinese technology.
(06:12):
The internet giant Tencent is based here, as is Huawei,
the tech behemoth that's found itself at the center of
US China tensions over technology in recent years. There are
newer trailblazers too. Dji, which essentially invented the consumer drone market,
(06:32):
is a Shunjan company, as is byd the Chinese carmaker
that is fast becoming a dominant force in electric vehicles.
It all points in one direction. Something. A think tank
recently highlighted that China is overtaking the US in its
capacity to innovate, and it's now ahead of the US
(06:56):
in everything from advanced batteries to hypersonic aircraft, quantum communications
and supercomputers. To understand how that has happened, you need
to look at China's long history of manufacturing consumer technology.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Okay, in this bin there, these are sort of ancient
prototype parts. But so let's take us down and this
needs to go on the floor.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
In his workshop a short walk away from Shunjan's electronics markets,
the American inventor Noah Zerkin shows me what he's building,
an augmented reality headset.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Okay, so there are you see. There are these three
circuit boards up here, and that's just for making the
displays work. And there are these two sensors, each of
which have two little cameras on them, little fish eye
cameras to track your hands. Then there are these two
big curved mirrors that rest in front of your eyes.
(08:04):
And the electronics on this headset are basically all made
from stuff that you can find in the market downstairs.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Tech inventors like Noah have chosen to base themselves in
shun Jen rather than the United States because being in
Shunjen means having instant access to a vast supply chain
of components and factories. It means they can work quickly
develop prototype products, test them, and manufacture them all at
(08:40):
a rapid rate.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Being able to source those components, I was able to
order things mostly from places that have stalls representing them
in the Watching Bay markets right that are right here,
and have them arrive at my doorstep, if not that day,
the next day. Same with the PCBs that the circuit boards.
(09:05):
Nowhere else can you get twenty four hour turnaround. If
I make a mistake on one of my prototypes, I
can identify it, change it anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
This is a big deal.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
So I can do a prototype iteration in twenty four
to forty eight hours. That is not true anywhere else
in the world.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
The ability to prototype and manufacture tech products rapidly is
giving rise to some really exciting companies in Senjen.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Very small factory, that's matter of fact, this is not
a factory all right. It looks like an exhibition center,
but it's not. This is a our R and D
testing field, so where you can see along the windows
they are are over twenty fifty chairs and those for
R and D and productions staff.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Only a few miles north of La Chiangbay are the
offices of the robotic startup Ui Bought. They design and
build industrial robots. In their bright and spacious new research
and development center. Dozens of robots move around the vast
(10:20):
open floor, guided by lasers and algorithms. The company is
growing rapidly. Just a few years ago, it was a
neighbor of Noah Zerkins in a small workshop above the
electronics market. Granjen from UI Bots says access to supply
(10:45):
chains and manufacturing expertise means startups here can operate at
what he calls Hunjen speed.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
For the most typical example, during the pandemic, we build
a anti pandemic robot UVC lights and a serum meter
camera on top within fourteen days. I'm not talking about
forty days to get the conception of a robot. I
mean fourteen days for the first prototype from an idea
(11:15):
to a prototype two weeks.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
That's supply chain.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Were you able to do that, we can get every
single component downstairs in Jaisel, Norris.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
This means Ui Bought is rapidly catching up with more
established US and European competitors.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Before the pandemic, there were several strong competitors globally like
we look up to them and we try to study
from them. After the pandemic, when we joined the conference
in Germany, we strangely realize that the European players, they
still trying to sell the same thing with the one
(11:54):
before pandemic three years earlier, and when we look at ourselves,
everything's totally different.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So your R and D effort was moving at Shunjan speed.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Well, I prefer to call it Shunjan speed.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yes, for newer startups like Ui Bot. There are plenty
of examples around shun Jen of the potential global success
that Chinese companies can aspire to. We've come to a
different part of Shunjen. We're now in one of the
big tech centers of this city. We're surrounded by huge buildings,
(12:32):
mostly occupied by some of the biggest tech companies in
China and in the world. There's a sounder construction in
the background. Three more huge blocks are going up soon
to be occupied by other Chinese tech companies. And we're
standing in front of the brand new headquarters of one
of the companies that's really put hun Jen on the
(12:54):
map in the last few years, and that's Dji. If
you want an example of a Chinese company totally dominating
a sector, Shunjan's drone maker Dji is a good example.
Over the last decade, it effectively invented the consumer drone market.
It now sells eight out of ten drones around the world.
(13:18):
When it's coming towards us, it really looks like an insect.
I'd say a dragonfly or something like that. Now gone,
I don't know. That must be twenty thirty meters into
the sky. It's just tovering over the fore court of
this building that's going even higher. Oh my, it's now
a side success for Dji means a massive new headquarters,
(13:45):
two towers that appear to hover in the sky called
sky City everywhere we go in Shandani's enormous buildings.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Yeah, so if you tell here six years ago, now
it's seven years ago. There's no this building right now
because we got this piece of land in twenty sixteen
and in twenty twenty two, we move into this building.
So after six years we have this beaultiful twin building
and campus here and right now we live here more
than one a.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Half here already.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Christina Young showed us around the buildings and told us
about the secret drone testing area housed inside one of
the towers.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
Before.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
When we have the office that we rent, it's so
difficult to find a place to fly because people are
going to walk around. We need to avoid the people.
And also some of the people they try to know
or try to find out what is DG's next for that,
so they try to still and see the product that
we're testing flight. So we have the fly inside inside
(14:43):
this building. You may see of those two box there
are four floor high area.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Cell floor high area.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
That's the flighting side.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Wow, that's very interesting. So they can fly in there
in peace, they know nobody is watching. You can maintain
your intellectual property. Nobody can see.
Speaker 7 (15:02):
Yeah. And also even without the good condition, like if
it's ringing windy, you can still test inside.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Have you got any really cool prototypes you're working on
at the moment.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
We have so many, but I cannot share now.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
A company like DJI represents something that ten or twenty
years ago. To observer US in the West, at least,
would have been difficult to imagine a Chinese company way
out in front of the competition setting the pace in
the creation of leading tech products. But China's tech ambitions
(15:45):
are not limited to robots or drones. China wants to
lead the world in all kinds of cutting edge technologies.
(16:05):
The drone maker Dji is one example of a Chinese
tech company that's leading its field in the development of technology.
Huawei is another, and China might be leading in a
multitude of other areas. Last year, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute,
(16:26):
a think tank, made waves when it concluded that China
now leads the world in thirty seven out of forty
four critical areas of technology. Another think tank, the Information
Technology and Innovation Foundation, based in Washington, warned that China
(16:47):
is evolving from an imitator to an innovator.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
It's easy to forget now just how far behind China
was in technology and how dismissive most of us in
the West were about China's tech capabilities all the way
up till pretty recently.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Matt Shean is a fellow in the Asia Program of
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the US, where
would you say China is right now? Is China catching
up to the US level in many technologies? Is it
a peer competitor already? Is it on a trajectory to
overtake I.
Speaker 8 (17:24):
Think the term peer competitor captures it. I mean there
are some areas where the US is clearly ahead, you know,
right now, in the frontiers of AI, in large language models,
in generative AI, that's an area where the US can
pretty comfortably say we are ahead.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
But if you look across other areas, if you look at.
Speaker 8 (17:42):
Renewable energy technologies, clean technologies, battery powered vehicles, electric vehicles,
China is far and away the global leader in these.
It has the supply chains, it has the deep manufacturing expertise,
and it's really on a trajectory currently to dominate those
industries globally. Look at an area like quantum, it's still
(18:06):
a wide open field. We don't know which sort of
path is going to be the most promising. But China
is showing results that are just as impressive or roughly
on par with the US across a few of those
different approaches. If you look at you know the success
of platform technology companies. Obviously, the US has some of
(18:26):
the global leaders in Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, But you
know the most popular app in the world right now
is a Chinese app. It's TikTok.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
In recent years, China has overtaken the US to become
the biggest file of patents in the world. Last year,
Huawei filed more patents than any other company anywhere. But
Shean says, innovation is not just about coming up with
new ideas. It's about turning them into solutions and products
(18:59):
at a scale that can reach a mass market.
Speaker 8 (19:03):
This is really an area where Chinese manufacturing prowess is
going to come into play. You know, the idea of
China being the factory of the world just because it
has cheap labor is way out of date. China's advantage
is not the cost of its labor. It's the fact
that it's built up the most sophisticated, intricate manufacturing ecosystem
in the world.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
That they have trained engineers who have spent thirty forty
years progressively building and refining more and more precise manufacturing
technologies and especially learning how to take a good idea
and scale it up to the level of hundreds of
thousands or millions of products.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
The Chinese government has technological progress at the center of
its national ambitions. Matt Chian says it's not clear that
China will inevitably overtake the US, but he says China's
progress so far suggests that the US cannot assume that
it will always be in the lead broadly.
Speaker 8 (20:04):
But I think, especially if you zoom in on the
United States and on Silicon Valley, we have this narrative
that technological innovation, freedom of speech, and democracy are all
intimately intertwined, that you cannot have innovation unless you have
free speech, free internet, political freedoms, and I think that
was a nice story. It fit broadly with our perception
(20:28):
of the way that creativity works and the way that
business and markets work. I think what China's done over
the last ten to fifteen years it's essentially pulled apart
that narrative that innovation depends on certain types of freedoms.
You can have world leading apps come out of a
country that doesn't have a free Internet. You can have
(20:50):
some of the biggest and most successful technology companies in
a country that has quite controlled markets and a very
heavy handed government. And I think it turned a lot
of ideas that we had in the West on their head.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
It's a profound conclusion, used to be an article of
faith that you need a democracy to spur tech innovation.
But China is turning that argument upside down. In an
authoritarian state, you can still innovate tech products and sell
them to the rest of the world via gloves off,
(21:29):
bare knuckle capitalism. So in your daily life, how many
times do you feel surprised by new products being made
and new innovations?
Speaker 9 (21:43):
Almost every day, almost every day.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Chijo is a venture capitalist based in shan Jin. He
spent years working at Huawei and in Japanese tech companies
before returning to China to capitalize on what he saw
as a boom in Chinese innovation.
Speaker 9 (22:02):
I forced myself to meet at least the one company
one day, at least the one company one day, and
read five to ten business plans one day, five to
ten businesses every day, every day, almost almost so I
can see a lot of innovative products.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Joe agrees that China's expertise in manufacturing has helped tech
companies develop, but he says there's another factor spurring Chinese
firms on the intense competition between Chinese companies for Chinese
tech consumers.
Speaker 9 (22:41):
Chinese guys like to use new things like application, one app,
and they will give up one app very quickly too.
So if you can't let them know the evaluations of
your app, they will give up very quickly. This is
(23:04):
the one point. And another point is competition. Competition. This
is a different culture. I think in the Western countries,
I do my business, you do yours. But in China,
I don't think so. I do my business and I
do your biness too.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Joe says. Chinese companies think of it in terms of survival.
Innovate or die. Survive.
Speaker 9 (23:33):
Survive is a very important cure in China.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
China's transformation into a global tech superpower to rival the
US is an incredible story. But the question now is
whether China is going to maintain that momentum and power
past the US and other countries to become the tech
power in the world. The global success of Chun Jan's
(23:59):
companies suggest it might, but it's not a given. I
would say so.
Speaker 9 (24:05):
Most advanced technology is not in China even now in
some key industrials. We need some time, We need time
to develop, like semiconductors like ais SO.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
China is not the most advanced in terms of technology,
but it's catching up fast. Do you think that China
one day soon, in the next few years, could become
the most advanced country for technology?
Speaker 9 (24:37):
We are developed very rapidly before today. After that, I
cannot predict. We are still working hard on catching up.
But when we overtake the US, we don't know. And
I think from the point of government, we don't think
one day we have to we have to overtake America.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I don't think so.
Speaker 9 (25:01):
But as the boss of the company, we have to
overtake see other guys. I am a businessman. When I
am invested a company, I hope say we're visa first
of one in the world one day.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
A changing of the guard when it comes to technology
happens very rarely. For the first time, we're seeing global
tech come out of an authoritarian state, without free internet,
without freedom of expression, and where surveillance cameras monitor your
every move. If China wins the tech race, the impact
(25:46):
on the rest of the world will be huge, and
we're already starting to see it.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
We hope you enjoy this excerpt of Global Tech Wars.
Find A four Audio bok at Pushkin, dot Fm, Slash Audiobooks, Audible, Spotify,
or wherever you get your audio books.
Pushkin Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hey, it's Nate and Maria.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
We're dropping by today to share an excerpt from a
new audiobook we think you'll find very interesting. It's called
Global Tech Wars, China's Race to Dominate, and it's about
how China's innovation is reshaping the global balance of power.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
For decades, China's economic rise has been symbolized by the
unstoppable force of its low cost manufacturing. And now China
is among the leading countries and cutting edge industries like AI,
electric vehicles, surveillance technology and more. When that comes a
new and disruptive wave of competition, one that threatens not
just Western manufacturing but also the West geopolitical dominance.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
In Global Tech Wars, Financial Times veteran journalist James King
not only analyzes China's rapid technological ascent, but what it
means for the future.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Drawing on deep research, exclusive interviews, and first hand insights,
King impacts the seismic shifts already underway, shifts that will
redefine economies, industries, and global power structures in the years ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Here's an excerpt of Global Tech Wars. If you want
to hear more, find Global Tech Wars from Pushkin Industries
and the ft at Pushkin dot Fm, slash audiobooks on Audible, Spotify,
or wherever you get your audiobooks.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Chapter one, shun Jun Speed in the heart of shun Jun,
a city in southern China, is the district of Hua
Chiangbi and it's home to the biggest electronics market in
the world. Yeah, it's a vast warren of stalls selling
(02:18):
every kind of electronic component under the sun. So we're
standing in the middle of one of the Huai Chanbi
electronics markets and the scene is really quite impressive. It's
basically one stall after another. There's hundreds of stalls here.
I mean there's just piles of electronic components on top
(02:41):
of each other in a very higgeldy piggledy way. It
looks like a rather eccentric hardware shop where you know
that you're selling everything, but you're not quite sure where
anything is.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So we have signal generators, we have multimeters, lots of
different kinds of multimeters. Obviously any micro controller you could
possibly want.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
And in the market, I met Noah's Zerkin. He's a
tech inventor from the US and he's chosen to innovate
new products, not back home in America, but here in
shun Jerns's inductors. For him, the electronics market is an
Aladdin's cave of potential treasures.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
USB con actors of every sort, including some rather exotic ones.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And these ones have here with lots of like brass
looking nodules coming out of them.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
It's something that I've actually been looking before it for
close to a year. A suitable punch.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yes, So what kind of products could you build with
the components that we can find in these markets here?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Everything from consumer electronics devices to robots, drones, military systems,
to maybe even space systems. Right, you can build anything
using the components here, Yes, I mean it's such a
(04:18):
tough question because you can literally build anything.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
For decades, this part of China was known as the
electronics workshop of the world. But these days shun Jen
doesn't just make other people's technology. It's building its own
Chinese tech, and in the process, China is emerging as
a tech innovator on a course to overtake the US
(04:47):
as the most important technology power in the world. We're
here in shun Jen. We're standing by a busy road
(05:07):
intersection surrounded by a forest of enormous skyscrapers, glass and
metal buildings reaching all the way down this long avenue. Cars, taxis,
even motorbikes riding on the pavements around us. Pretty much
in the center of this vast metropolis, Shunjun is known
(05:28):
as the Silicon Valley of China, and it's changed dramatically
in the last few decades. About twenty years ago, shun
Jurn and the cities around it in the polar of
the Delta made a name for themselves by mostly manufacturing
other countries technologies and maybe copying it as well. But
(05:49):
now we're on the brink of a really totally different
new era. These days, Chinese companies are making their own brands,
innovating their own technology, and selling that to Europe, America
and all over the rest of the world. Shun John
is home to some of the biggest names in Chinese technology.
(06:12):
The internet giant Tencent is based here, as is Huawei,
the tech behemoth that's found itself at the center of
US China tensions over technology in recent years. There are
newer trailblazers too. Dji, which essentially invented the consumer drone market,
(06:32):
is a Shunjan company, as is byd the Chinese carmaker
that is fast becoming a dominant force in electric vehicles.
It all points in one direction. Something. A think tank
recently highlighted that China is overtaking the US in its
capacity to innovate, and it's now ahead of the US
(06:56):
in everything from advanced batteries to hypersonic aircraft, quantum communications
and supercomputers. To understand how that has happened, you need
to look at China's long history of manufacturing consumer technology.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Okay, in this bin there, these are sort of ancient
prototype parts. But so let's take us down and this
needs to go on the floor.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
In his workshop a short walk away from Shunjan's electronics markets,
the American inventor Noah Zerkin shows me what he's building,
an augmented reality headset.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Okay, so there are you see. There are these three
circuit boards up here, and that's just for making the
displays work. And there are these two sensors, each of
which have two little cameras on them, little fish eye
cameras to track your hands. Then there are these two
big curved mirrors that rest in front of your eyes.
(08:04):
And the electronics on this headset are basically all made
from stuff that you can find in the market downstairs.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Tech inventors like Noah have chosen to base themselves in
shun Jen rather than the United States because being in
Shunjen means having instant access to a vast supply chain
of components and factories. It means they can work quickly
develop prototype products, test them, and manufacture them all at
(08:40):
a rapid rate.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Being able to source those components, I was able to
order things mostly from places that have stalls representing them
in the Watching Bay markets right that are right here,
and have them arrive at my doorstep, if not that day,
the next day. Same with the PCBs that the circuit boards.
(09:05):
Nowhere else can you get twenty four hour turnaround. If
I make a mistake on one of my prototypes, I
can identify it, change it anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
This is a big deal.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
So I can do a prototype iteration in twenty four
to forty eight hours. That is not true anywhere else
in the world.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
The ability to prototype and manufacture tech products rapidly is
giving rise to some really exciting companies in Senjen.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Very small factory, that's matter of fact, this is not
a factory all right. It looks like an exhibition center,
but it's not. This is a our R and D
testing field, so where you can see along the windows
they are are over twenty fifty chairs and those for
R and D and productions staff.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Only a few miles north of La Chiangbay are the
offices of the robotic startup Ui Bought. They design and
build industrial robots. In their bright and spacious new research
and development center. Dozens of robots move around the vast
(10:20):
open floor, guided by lasers and algorithms. The company is
growing rapidly. Just a few years ago, it was a
neighbor of Noah Zerkins in a small workshop above the
electronics market. Granjen from UI Bots says access to supply
(10:45):
chains and manufacturing expertise means startups here can operate at
what he calls Hunjen speed.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
For the most typical example, during the pandemic, we build
a anti pandemic robot UVC lights and a serum meter
camera on top within fourteen days. I'm not talking about
forty days to get the conception of a robot. I
mean fourteen days for the first prototype from an idea
(11:15):
to a prototype two weeks.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
That's supply chain.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Were you able to do that, we can get every
single component downstairs in Jaisel, Norris.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
This means Ui Bought is rapidly catching up with more
established US and European competitors.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Before the pandemic, there were several strong competitors globally like
we look up to them and we try to study
from them. After the pandemic, when we joined the conference
in Germany, we strangely realize that the European players, they
still trying to sell the same thing with the one
(11:54):
before pandemic three years earlier, and when we look at ourselves,
everything's totally different.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So your R and D effort was moving at Shunjan speed.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Well, I prefer to call it Shunjan speed.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yes, for newer startups like Ui Bot. There are plenty
of examples around shun Jen of the potential global success
that Chinese companies can aspire to. We've come to a
different part of Shunjen. We're now in one of the
big tech centers of this city. We're surrounded by huge buildings,
(12:32):
mostly occupied by some of the biggest tech companies in
China and in the world. There's a sounder construction in
the background. Three more huge blocks are going up soon
to be occupied by other Chinese tech companies. And we're
standing in front of the brand new headquarters of one
of the companies that's really put hun Jen on the
(12:54):
map in the last few years, and that's Dji. If
you want an example of a Chinese company totally dominating
a sector, Shunjan's drone maker Dji is a good example.
Over the last decade, it effectively invented the consumer drone market.
It now sells eight out of ten drones around the world.
(13:18):
When it's coming towards us, it really looks like an insect.
I'd say a dragonfly or something like that. Now gone,
I don't know. That must be twenty thirty meters into
the sky. It's just tovering over the fore court of
this building that's going even higher. Oh my, it's now
a side success for Dji means a massive new headquarters,
(13:45):
two towers that appear to hover in the sky called
sky City everywhere we go in Shandani's enormous buildings.
Speaker 7 (13:54):
Yeah, so if you tell here six years ago, now
it's seven years ago. There's no this building right now
because we got this piece of land in twenty sixteen
and in twenty twenty two, we move into this building.
So after six years we have this beaultiful twin building
and campus here and right now we live here more
than one a.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Half here already.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Christina Young showed us around the buildings and told us
about the secret drone testing area housed inside one of
the towers.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
Before.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
When we have the office that we rent, it's so
difficult to find a place to fly because people are
going to walk around. We need to avoid the people.
And also some of the people they try to know
or try to find out what is DG's next for that,
so they try to still and see the product that
we're testing flight. So we have the fly inside inside
(14:43):
this building. You may see of those two box there
are four floor high area.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Cell floor high area.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
That's the flighting side.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Wow, that's very interesting. So they can fly in there
in peace, they know nobody is watching. You can maintain
your intellectual property. Nobody can see.
Speaker 7 (15:02):
Yeah. And also even without the good condition, like if
it's ringing windy, you can still test inside.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Have you got any really cool prototypes you're working on
at the moment.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
We have so many, but I cannot share now.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
A company like DJI represents something that ten or twenty
years ago. To observer US in the West, at least,
would have been difficult to imagine a Chinese company way
out in front of the competition setting the pace in
the creation of leading tech products. But China's tech ambitions
(15:45):
are not limited to robots or drones. China wants to
lead the world in all kinds of cutting edge technologies.
(16:05):
The drone maker Dji is one example of a Chinese
tech company that's leading its field in the development of technology.
Huawei is another, and China might be leading in a
multitude of other areas. Last year, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute,
(16:26):
a think tank, made waves when it concluded that China
now leads the world in thirty seven out of forty
four critical areas of technology. Another think tank, the Information
Technology and Innovation Foundation, based in Washington, warned that China
(16:47):
is evolving from an imitator to an innovator.
Speaker 8 (16:52):
It's easy to forget now just how far behind China
was in technology and how dismissive most of us in
the West were about China's tech capabilities all the way
up till pretty recently.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Matt Shean is a fellow in the Asia Program of
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the US, where
would you say China is right now? Is China catching
up to the US level in many technologies? Is it
a peer competitor already? Is it on a trajectory to
overtake I.
Speaker 8 (17:24):
Think the term peer competitor captures it. I mean there
are some areas where the US is clearly ahead, you know,
right now, in the frontiers of AI, in large language models,
in generative AI, that's an area where the US can
pretty comfortably say we are ahead.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
But if you look across other areas, if you look at.
Speaker 8 (17:42):
Renewable energy technologies, clean technologies, battery powered vehicles, electric vehicles,
China is far and away the global leader in these.
It has the supply chains, it has the deep manufacturing expertise,
and it's really on a trajectory currently to dominate those
industries globally. Look at an area like quantum, it's still
(18:06):
a wide open field. We don't know which sort of
path is going to be the most promising. But China
is showing results that are just as impressive or roughly
on par with the US across a few of those
different approaches. If you look at you know the success
of platform technology companies. Obviously, the US has some of
(18:26):
the global leaders in Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, But you
know the most popular app in the world right now
is a Chinese app. It's TikTok.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
In recent years, China has overtaken the US to become
the biggest file of patents in the world. Last year,
Huawei filed more patents than any other company anywhere. But
Shean says, innovation is not just about coming up with
new ideas. It's about turning them into solutions and products
(18:59):
at a scale that can reach a mass market.
Speaker 8 (19:03):
This is really an area where Chinese manufacturing prowess is
going to come into play. You know, the idea of
China being the factory of the world just because it
has cheap labor is way out of date. China's advantage
is not the cost of its labor. It's the fact
that it's built up the most sophisticated, intricate manufacturing ecosystem
in the world.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
That they have trained engineers who have spent thirty forty
years progressively building and refining more and more precise manufacturing
technologies and especially learning how to take a good idea
and scale it up to the level of hundreds of
thousands or millions of products.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
The Chinese government has technological progress at the center of
its national ambitions. Matt Chian says it's not clear that
China will inevitably overtake the US, but he says China's
progress so far suggests that the US cannot assume that
it will always be in the lead broadly.
Speaker 8 (20:04):
But I think, especially if you zoom in on the
United States and on Silicon Valley, we have this narrative
that technological innovation, freedom of speech, and democracy are all
intimately intertwined, that you cannot have innovation unless you have
free speech, free internet, political freedoms, and I think that
was a nice story. It fit broadly with our perception
(20:28):
of the way that creativity works and the way that
business and markets work. I think what China's done over
the last ten to fifteen years it's essentially pulled apart
that narrative that innovation depends on certain types of freedoms.
You can have world leading apps come out of a
country that doesn't have a free Internet. You can have
(20:50):
some of the biggest and most successful technology companies in
a country that has quite controlled markets and a very
heavy handed government. And I think it turned a lot
of ideas that we had in the West on their head.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
It's a profound conclusion, used to be an article of
faith that you need a democracy to spur tech innovation.
But China is turning that argument upside down. In an
authoritarian state, you can still innovate tech products and sell
them to the rest of the world via gloves off,
(21:29):
bare knuckle capitalism. So in your daily life, how many
times do you feel surprised by new products being made
and new innovations?
Speaker 9 (21:43):
Almost every day, almost every day.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Chijo is a venture capitalist based in shan Jin. He
spent years working at Huawei and in Japanese tech companies
before returning to China to capitalize on what he saw
as a boom in Chinese innovation.
Speaker 9 (22:02):
I forced myself to meet at least the one company
one day, at least the one company one day, and
read five to ten business plans one day, five to
ten businesses every day, every day, almost almost so I
can see a lot of innovative products.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Joe agrees that China's expertise in manufacturing has helped tech
companies develop, but he says there's another factor spurring Chinese
firms on the intense competition between Chinese companies for Chinese
tech consumers.
Speaker 9 (22:41):
Chinese guys like to use new things like application, one app,
and they will give up one app very quickly too.
So if you can't let them know the evaluations of
your app, they will give up very quickly. This is
(23:04):
the one point. And another point is competition. Competition. This
is a different culture. I think in the Western countries,
I do my business, you do yours. But in China,
I don't think so. I do my business and I
do your biness too.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Joe says. Chinese companies think of it in terms of survival.
Innovate or die. Survive.
Speaker 9 (23:33):
Survive is a very important cure in China.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
China's transformation into a global tech superpower to rival the
US is an incredible story. But the question now is
whether China is going to maintain that momentum and power
past the US and other countries to become the tech
power in the world. The global success of Chun Jan's
(23:59):
companies suggest it might, but it's not a given. I
would say so.
Speaker 9 (24:05):
Most advanced technology is not in China even now in
some key industrials. We need some time, We need time
to develop, like semiconductors like ais SO.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
China is not the most advanced in terms of technology,
but it's catching up fast. Do you think that China
one day soon, in the next few years, could become
the most advanced country for technology?
Speaker 9 (24:37):
We are developed very rapidly before today. After that, I
cannot predict. We are still working hard on catching up.
But when we overtake the US, we don't know. And
I think from the point of government, we don't think
one day we have to we have to overtake America.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I don't think so.
Speaker 9 (25:01):
But as the boss of the company, we have to
overtake see other guys. I am a businessman. When I
am invested a company, I hope say we're visa first
of one in the world one day.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
A changing of the guard when it comes to technology
happens very rarely. For the first time, we're seeing global
tech come out of an authoritarian state, without free internet,
without freedom of expression, and where surveillance cameras monitor your
every move. If China wins the tech race, the impact
(25:46):
on the rest of the world will be huge, and
we're already starting to see it.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
We hope you enjoy this excerpt of Global Tech Wars.
Find A four Audio bok at Pushkin, dot Fm, Slash Audiobooks, Audible, Spotify,
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Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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