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Magazine

The China issue

January 2019

Genes, chips, qubits, rockets, reactors, surveillance, and sand—the tools of a rising superpower

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Letter from the editor

Editor’s letter: China’s technology ambitions—and their limits

Features

Categorized in 17032
China’s tech giants want to go global. Just one thing might stand in their way.
Multibillion-dollar companies like Alibaba and Tencent have thrived thanks to a government that provided incentives but otherwise let them grow. Can they count on that in the future?
Categorized in Silicon Valley
Inside Shenzhen’s race to outdo Silicon Valley
Shenzhen flooded the world with cheap gadgets. Can it now become what Silicon Valley never did—a global hub of innovation, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing?
Categorized in Computing
China has never had a real chip industry. Making AI chips could change that.
The country has struggled for decades to build a competitive semiconductor industry. In making specialized AI chips, though, it’s got a head start.
Categorized in 17036
Aboard the giant sand-sucking ships that China uses to reshape the world
Massive ships, mind-boggling amounts of sand, and an appetite for expansionism in the South China Sea: the recipe for a land grab like no other. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Categorized in Climate change
China’s losing its taste for nuclear power. That’s bad news.
Once nuclear’s strongest booster, China is growing wary about its cost and safety.
Categorized in Climate change
China’s giant transmission grid could be the key to cutting climate emissions
But are the country’s next-generation power lines a clean-power play or a global power move?
Categorized in Computing
The man turning China into a quantum superpower
Jian-Wei Pan, China’s “father of quantum”, is masterminding its drive for global leadership in technologies that could change entire industries.
Categorized in Biotechnology
Years before CRISPR babies, this man was the first to edit human embryos
In 2015, an unknown Chinese scientist edited the DNA of human embryos. It was a step on an inexorable path to designer babies.
Categorized in 17036
Science vs. the state: a family saga at the Caltech of China
Three generations of personal and political history show the tensions between the Communist Party’s need for knowledge and its need for ideological control.
Categorized in 17041
How Google took on China—and lost
It used to be that while Google wanted China, China really needed Google. Not any more.
Categorized in Tech policy
The Reunion: a new science-fiction story about surveillance in China
Technology is making people unhinged and violent. Can an algorithm stop them?

Also in this issue
- China’s tech boom has inspired a wave of internet-related art
  These artists are critiquing how technology promotes consumerism, shapes identity, and enables new forms of censorship.
  Categorized in Tech policy
- Why China’s electric-car industry is leaving Detroit, Japan, and Germany in the dust
  China was no good at cars. Then EVs came along.
  Categorized in Climate change
- A short drive across the Pacific
  Self-driving cars need the US and China to just get along already.
  Categorized in Smart cities
- China is racing ahead in 5G. Here’s what that means.
  The next generation of wireless technology promises much faster speeds while using less power. No wonder Beijing is throwing everything at getting there first.
  Categorized in Smart cities
- China vs. the US: Who wins and who loses
  An interview with Yasheng Huang, MIT professor and expert on entrepreneurship in China.
  Categorized in Artificial intelligence
- China launched more rockets into orbit in 2018 than any other country
  And in the next few years it plans to launch the world’s biggest space telescope, the world’s heaviest rocket, and a space station to rival the ISS.
  Categorized in Space
- How China got a head start in fintech, and why the West won’t catch up
  Payment apps like Alipay and WeChat transformed daily life in China. The West won’t see a similar payments revolution—and that might even be a good thing.
  Categorized in 17041
- The US and China aren’t in a “cold war,” so stop calling it that
  In our globalized economy, the term is not only outdated, it’s harmful.
  Categorized in Tech policy

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