By P Chong                                                                                      10 March 2011

The race always go to the swiftest & the fastest. When your engine stalls, others will roar. There is no relenting . . . there is no waiting. There can only be winners or losers. That’s the name of the game. When you’re ahead, you’d race & surge on.

When I wrote “China‘s Leaping Achievements” in November 2009, which article still enjoys a great reading audience by topping the list up to the present, I hadn’t put in much details about how China build & grow from an impoverished economy to its present giant standing, overtaking Japan as the second largest economy & is right on the doorstep of the U.S.

Way back in the early 1960s when I was at the University of Malaya at Pantai valley, Kuala Lumpur, I had learned from our economic geography professor, Dr. Dwyer, one phrase of his famous expression: “The Chinese are the most assiduous in their economic pursuit . . . unshakeable & resilient “. According to him then no race in the world can ever even match or compare. A country maybe rich in its natural resources, but it’s the people that constitute the greatest of all resources, natural or otherwise. There are many countries in the world endowed with great natural resources but not getting anywhere and conversely, there are countries without such natural fortune making their marks in the world. Singapore, the City State, is undoubtedly the best example in this category.

 

Nation building involves fundamentally the national identity
using the power of the state by the unification of its
 people so that the state is politically stable and sustainable for future development. China addresses this problem very well and it
 has built a patriotic, hard working and educated workforce. The key to 
developing a nation’s wealth is developing your human resources . . . educating and building up the middle class. Science and technology hold up the base. In just three decades, China has shown the world an unprecedented growth.

China successfully prove what can be achieved when
 a Communist nation embraces capitalism. As a nation, they have 
synchronized the chaos into a force to be reckoned with. Even the West 
has accepted the fact that the Chinese are smarter, more hardworking,
 obliging and its immense pride to collectively build a nation.

From a nation of million bicycles, China has become a nation of cars. A few years ago there was a survey done by The Economist concerning
car ownership in China , India , France and USA . As predicted, USA has
 more than 1000 cars, France 762, China 11 and India 7 for every 1000
 people. Just only, last year China has become the biggest car market
 in the world!! According to China Daily in the first 10 months car
 sales were up 34% from last year … BMW has already fulfilled its
 target of 112,000 cars for this year in September, Mercedes sold over
101,000 units and Rolls Royce sold more of its cars in China than the
 US and last month Jaguar/Landrover has just open a new dealership in 
China.

Today’s Communist China is only Communist in name. 
The demand for luxury goods in China is growing at an exponential pace. Luxury items makers such as LV , Prada, Gucci, Coach and etc. 
reported more than 100% annual growth for the past few years. It has
 come to the point where Western products has to customize to suit the
 Chinese needs and taste like longer leg rooms at the back seat for
 Rolls Royce coz most of them are chauffeur driven so the bosses need 
extra leg room !!

The amount of research articles published 
by Chinese scientist is staggering. It is reported that China has jumped to number 2
 – up from 14th in 1995, in the number of articles published in the
 science and technology journals worldwide such as IEEE, Nanotech & Applied Physics. It is an open secret that the majority of the
 PhD students in the hard sciences enrolled in elite US universities 
(Ivy League) are Chinese. It is these PhD graduates that will do most 
of the research. It should be noted that a lot of the Microsoft
 patents came from its Beijing Labs.

By far China ’s most successful research institution is the National 
Institute for Biological Sciences or NBIS, which is responsible for
 half of China’s scientific publication. The Institute’s 23 main
 investigators, director and deputy director are all returnees from the 
United States. Quote one of its principal investigators : “ If I
 stayed in America the chances of making a discovery is slimmer, here
 people take risk, they give you money and you can essentially do 
whatever you want ”. (Refer information on www.economywatch.com.
) Patents are actually a measure of technological prowess and
 innovation. Nations that file the largest number of patents are the
 home to innovative corporations and Nobel Prize winners. It won’t be
 long before you will see Chinese Nobel Prize winners. No wonder there are so
 many first coming out of China nowadays.

China has the fastest Supercomputer (Tianhe-1A) in the world running at the speed of 2.5 
petaflops which is equivalent to the power of 175,000 high-end laptops.

The fastest bullet train belongs to the Chinese (CRH360) with a top 
speed of 262 miles per hour leaving the Japs and Germans far behind.
 And these are indigenous technology. With all the money throwing into the 
national car industry after 20 over years, we ended up being a ‘BETTER
 CAR ASSEMBLER’ than our neighbours.

China hold the whole world at ransom in July
 this year by banning all its Rare Earth Materials. Rare earth
materials are a collection of 17 minerals found at the bottom of the
periodic table. China controls 95% of the world supply. These rare
earth includes cerium, scandium, yttrium, lanthanum and etc are used 
in our daily lives such as handphones, laptops, camera lenses, flat
screen tv, x-ray machines, guided missiles systems, oil refineries
and etc. By banning, the exports of these materials China indirectly 
impede the growth and development of many things. Fortunately, there
 are 2 other companies in the world that will have the capability to
produce some to offset the Chinese ban. One is the Lynas Corp from
Western Australia which have a mine in Kuantan, Malaysia and it will
 start production by end of next year, while the other is Molycorp from
 California . How their combined output added up to around 40-50,000
tons which is still way below the global demand of 250,000 tons.
Unsurprisingly the shares of both of these companies jump multiple
folds since the July ban. Lynas was trading at some where 38cents in
July and the high of the year was $1.69 (ASX) and shares of Molycorp
are more than double now.

It is also a misconception that China’s success is due to its Cheap
Labour; yes, that was probably 15 years ago. However, the next
 megatrend will be the growth of the Chinese Research & Development.
 The Chinese will be able to apply the same cost advantage in its 
manufacturing towards Research & Development in no time. If you notice
 currently the global telecoms equipment sector is now dominated by 2 
Chinese companies (about 65% of new installations) notably Huawei. 
Western countries are buying this Chinese equipment not because it’s
 cheap but also it is good!! In a recent electric car, trade show in
 Shenzhen there is this Chinese R&D company that reinvented the
 battery. Their battery last twice longer, much more power, half the 
existing battery weight and 100% recyclable. This is going to change
the face of the global automobile market. With its low cost R&D,
 product development and manufacturing, which country can match China? 
It will continue to dominate the world for decades to come!!! In the
 End, it is the Communist China that won the battle of capitalism.!!

So when will China overtake US as the number one economy in the world?
As predicted China will overtake Uncle Sam ‘s economy in two years in
 terms of PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) It won’t be long as China’s 
opponent is embraced with an insolvent banking system, high 
unemployment rate , homeless population, high foreclosure rate and 
with 40 million people on food stamps and its Federal Reserve printing
 money out of thin air. Over here in China , its economy is growing at 
a 10% pace annually. 
And if you think, it’s easy for you to access the Chinese Market. Think again. If
 your company owns certain patents they will demand access to them and
furthermore train their people on how to use your technology so that
 they can reverse engineer it the moment you open shop. Just ask car
 manufacturer Peugeot on the difficulty and pain in working with the
 Chinese.

China is also quietly building up its military and I believe it is
 currently making use of the financial crisis to extend its
 geopolitical and economic sphere of influence in Asia and beyond. China is already refurbishing an ex Russian aircraft carrier (Varyag) 
due to completed in 2012 and building 2 other 50,000 to 60,000 ton 
carriers due to complete in 2015. When completed China will have what 
they called a ‘BLUE WATER NAVY’ . This means Chinese navy are capable
 of operating across deep waters of the oceans and also able to launch 
a nuclear attack from anywhere in the world. Moreover recent 
developments in the Chinese missiles technology caught most western
powers off guard. For example, a few years back China conducted a
successful anti satellite missile test. It used a modified DF-21 (Dong
Feng) ballistic missile mounted with the kinetic kill vehicle to 
intercept the satellite.

Another recent development is the Chinese ASBM or anti ship ballistic
missile the DF-21A which is designed to launch from land and can
 penetrate the most advance defence from any moving aircraft carriers.
The carrier battle group used to be the ‘untouchables’ will no longer
 hold and it will make the US aircraft carrier battle fleets a sitting 
duck. With these multiple warhead ballistic missiles homing into these 
battle groups, there is nothing they can do to stop it. Even if it
 explode in mid air, imagine a nuclear warhead explodes in the vicinity
of the fleet, it will just vaporize the entire fleet.

There are so much more happenings that are ceaselessly unending. To list them all would not be possible here. Some of the great & would-be achievements are inescapable:

1. China’s Great Engineering Feat: The Three Gorges Dam

2. China – World’s Biggest Megapolis with 42 Millions!

3. China’s Engineering Might: Bullet Trasin

4. World’s Longest Cross-Sea Bridge – The Pearl River Delta  Bridge

Read in my blog “Who Owns The U.S.?” together with the above 4 topics, you’ll be amazed & astounded beyond all reasons to realise just how great & mighty China is and will be in the very near future.