As we enter the Year of the Snake, I am not quite sure what is going on with my Chinese Sonic toothbrush, which my wife bought me as a Chinese New Year present in January 2024. It still does not need charging after 12 months of twice-daily two-minute use! A quick web search reveals that I would typically expect to have to recharge a Western-brand Sonic toothbrush after two to three weeks. What is going on?
A global technology revolution is happening across a bewildering variety of electronic consumer products, both large and small, and at a pace that almost defies belief. These products range from electric vehicles to computers, phones to TVs, most of which are AI-enabled, but not yet my humble toothbrush! Much of this emanates from China, where the combination of innovation, design excellence, and quality is now world-leading and breathtaking in equal measure.
About 20 years ago, back in Australia, I went to a local hardware store to buy some power tools. I was astonished to be able to buy an angle grinder, power drill, and sander for A$10 ($6.25) each. Given the supply chain markups, transport costs, and final profit margin at the store, I could not believe anyone could manufacture such tools so cheaply. Cheap and cheerful is the expression used back then, and, perhaps inevitably, the tool’s longevity was often measured in months, not years.
That was then, and this is now where such things are of the past. “Made in China” no longer has any association with seemingly unfeasibly cheap and perhaps low-quality, even shoddy goods. The name of the game is now high-quality merchandise for highly reasonable prices. Two recent examples have brought this home to me.
There is no area of technological development where China is not now competing on at least a semi-equal footing with the rest of the world. Attempts at containment are backfiring and are also self-defeating. China seems able to marshal its considerable resources wherever needed to swiftly counter such threats and deal with them on disruptive timescales. The consequences are the opposite of what containment strategies were hoping for as it spurs rapid internal progress. It is better to collaborate, cooperate, and compete fairly as the best for mutual benefit, development, and shared prosperity
The first was providing all delegates at our recent Space Sustainability conference with a branded welcome pack with a high-quality pen, a USB key, an umbrella, a notebook with magnetic clasp, and a thermos flask with a color-led temperature display in a fantastic, branded presentation box, all for around 100 yuan ($13.70)! The second was buying an immense 2-meter-wide high-definition smart TV display for the same conference for around 3,000 yuan, which now doubles as our bright, high-contrast colloquium display screen at the Laboratory for Space Research (HKU), displacing our faded and temperamental projector. The combination of quality and value for money in all these goods was as impressive as it was welcome, and, I believe, a new normal in commercial Chinese technology and power.
The days when European, American, and other Western companies could look down on their Chinese competitors and point the finger as poor imitators, copiers, or, at worst, purloiners of Western tech and inventions are now long past. A tired trope originally applied to Japan in the 1970s and early 1980s that no longer applies to either and is as untenable today as it was unsavory back then. The reasons are not hard to find. They originate in the massive, decadal investments in China’s education, universities, laboratories, and technological and engineering institutes. They have seen the well-educated, highly trained, skilled talent pool expand considerably, and their research outputs grow phenomenally. These are reflected in the number of patents awarded, high-quality research papers published in the world’s top journals, and myriads of amazing inventions, developments, and refinements now outpacing all other major economies. This is combined with a growing commercial prowess and exemplary design excellence that produces an extremely internationally competitive edge that can be hard to resist in a fair and open market.
The rapid emergence of regular disruptive technologies, innovations that significantly alter how businesses operate, emanating from China across multiple types of markets, was recently exemplified by the ChatGPT competitor DeepSeek. This one product launch upended the market overnight and singlehandedly led to a significant one-day sell-off in some US tech stocks. The fightback was as immediate as expected, but the impact is self-evident, and I believe merely the taste of things to come.
There is no area of technological development where China is not now competing on at least a semi-equal footing with the rest of the world. Attempts at containment are backfiring and are also self-defeating. China seems able to marshal its considerable resources wherever needed to swiftly counter such threats and deal with them on disruptive timescales. The consequences are the opposite of what containment strategies were hoping for as it spurs rapid internal progress. It is better to collaborate, cooperate, and compete fairly as the best for mutual benefit, development, and shared prosperity. As it is, Chinese technology presses on in leaps and bounds, whether it is from my humble toothbrush to all-terrain, versatile robots already working in the field, to AI-enabled internet of things sensors, to sophisticated automation to smart-city infrastructure. It extends to commercial wide-body jets like the C919 and aircraft jet engines. Unfortunately, the aviation behemoth Boeing suffered record losses after profit (or even greed) seemed to win over engineering prudence and safety.
My core interests here rest in “NewSpace”, with the rapid emergence of three Chinese satellite commercial constellations and their associated high-end technologies, often developed in-house, that are intended to rival Starlink and, of course, space exploration leadership as exemplified in the world-class Chang’e lunar program and the Chinese space station. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has some direct interests here through its top universities — the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of Hong Kong, all of which have skin in the game. The HKSAR can and should play a leading role in the emergence of NewSpace as a key disruptive technology for smart cities everywhere, especially for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. I also believe we can be a leading global hub in space and space sustainability if we want — it is there for the taking. But we need first to brush up on our policies and approach.
The author is director of the University of Hong Kong’s Laboratory for Space Research.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
