As China’s political elite gathers for the country’s annual legislative sessions, we examine the broader forces likely to influence policies and decision-making for the coming year. In the eighth part of the series, Dannie Peng looks at recent strides made in China’s scientific and tech sectors, the country’s ambitions and the challenges it faces, particularly in its tech war with the United States.
In June, when China’s Chang’e-6 spacecraft touched down on the far side of the moon and scooped lunar soil from a crater older than life itself, the world watched in awe.
But in Washington, the reaction was edged with unease. Here, suddenly, was a feat even Nasa had never achieved – a symbol of China’s vaulting ambition in a 21st-century contest where science and geopolitics collide.
That moment crystallised a year of Chinese breakthroughs: ChatGPT-level AI models emerging from a Hangzhou start-up; sixth-gen stealth fighters flying over cities; humanoid robots mastering martial arts; brain-inspired chips redefining computing.
Meanwhile, state media proclaimed China the new heavyweight in scientific research, outpacing the US in high-impact studies. To some observers, the momentum suggests an inexorable shift in the global tech hierarchy.
“The tipping point has probably come,” said robotics scientist Geng Tao, the founder of Qibo Robot Company in China’s eastern Shandong province, which created Qibbot – a teleoperated, one-armed boxing robot.
He described the technological achievements of the past year as “explosive”, but said the outcome was “predictable and natural”.
“The Chinese government and private sector have been investing money and human capital in sci-tech for years, and the country has a huge market,” he said.
Yet, for every leap forward, contradictions loom.
Beijing’s tech surge thrives on vast state funding and a hungry private sector but grapples with US-led chip sanctions, academic rigidity and a shortage of global talent.
As China’s leaders gather at the “two sessions” in Beijing to pledge even greater investment, a pivotal question hangs over the US-China cold war for silicon supremacy: is 2025 the year Beijing’s sprint begins to rewrite the rules – or the year its limits come into focus?
In space exploration, the world-first mission and feats of Chang’e-6 have caused some anxiety in the US, which has been the undisputed leader in space for decades.
CNN said the mission underlined China’s rise “as a space superpower”. In June, it wrote that the successful return of the lunar soil samples “would give China a head start in harnessing the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration – an increasingly competitive field that has contributed to what [then] Nasa chief Bill Nelson calls a new ‘space race’”.
On the military technology front, China unveiled the country’s first sixth-generation stealth fighter jet in December, which Chinese experts say could have even greater stealth capabilities at hypersonic speeds. According to one military expert, the flight marks an important milestone and shows that “China has fully surpassed global advanced standards, including the US, and now leads the world”.
And last year, China also achieved many “world firsts” in various key scientific fields, ranging from deep-sea exploration and chips to biotech and quantum technologies.
Among these breakthroughs, Chinese scientists reported the world’s first brain-inspired vision chip in May, and the world’s most advanced ocean drilling vessel, the Meng Xiang, which was designed and built in China, was officially commissioned in Guangzhou on November 17.
In some fundamental disciplines, such as physics, Chinese research institutes are overtaking their American counterparts to become the world’s leading contributors of high-level research output.
“China is now a leading scientific power,” The Economist said in an article published in June. “They contribute to more papers in prestigious journals than their colleagues from America and the European Union and they produce more work that is highly cited.”
Rao Yi, a professor of life sciences at Peking University, echoed this sentiment. “China has been steadily, or even sometimes exponentially, increasing its support of science, and it has definitely changed the landscape of science of the entire world,” he said.
The world was indeed stunned by a Chinese innovation that has since altered the tech landscape.
Two groundbreaking artificial intelligence (AI) models released by DeepSeek – a young company based in the eastern city of Hangzhou – were said to rival the generative AI chatbots developed by US tech giants such as OpenAI and Google, but at a fraction of the cost and computing power in training.
The release of DeepSeek’s V3 large-scale language model in December and the R1 inference model in January sent shock waves through the US tech world in particular, appearing to overturn assumptions about US dominance and challenging the notion that US sanctions on cutting-edge chips could curb China’s indigenous AI development.
MIT Technology Review commented in January that rather than weakening China’s AI capabilities, the sanctions appeared to be driving start-ups such as DeepSeek to innovate in ways that prioritise efficiency, resource pooling and collaboration.
“The US was so confident in their AI that they thought the world would have to follow them, but now DeepSeek has just come up with something that’s totally beyond what they expected. That’s the most inspiring thing about DeepSeek,” roboticist Geng said.
He believes that compared to the aerospace and military sectors – which are dominated by China’s national system – DeepSeek’s importance to Chinese innovation is much greater.
In the past, Geng said, China’s venture capital followed Silicon Valley’s lead. Whenever a hi-tech breakthrough occurred there, domestic capital rushed to that area.
But now the emergence of DeepSeek – with no government involvement – gave the Western world “a totally new understanding” of the freedom and dynamism of China’s economic system, Geng said.
Zang Jiyuan, a researcher specialising in strategic research on China’s manufacturing sector at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, was most impressed last year by the launch of humanoid robots from Chinese robotics company Unitree.
“Unitree has successfully integrated neural networks into its robots, which means that AI algorithms can really support innovation in high-end manufacturing,” Zang said. “This kind of disruptive technology could revolutionise equipment – from buses to large aircraft to huge machine tools – in the future and have a much broader impact.”
Powered by AI algorithms, 16 of the company’s models showed off their dancing skills at China’s Spring Festival Gala in January, kicking off a hi-tech celebration of the Year of the Snake. A month later, Unitree’s robot performed split-second martial arts manoeuvres in its latest demo.
“AI-driven robots are evolving at an incredibly fast pace, surpassing my expectations. Every day brings new surprises,” Unitree’s 35-year-old CEO Wang Xingxing recently told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. “I believe that by the end of the year humanoid robots will reach a whole new level.”
The impact of technological breakthroughs is spilling into other areas of society and creating deep ripples in China.
A striking example is the phenomenal success of the animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2, which broke several box office records and became the first non-Hollywood film to join the coveted billion-dollar club. The film taps into the richness of Chinese traditional mythology and brings it to life in a form that appeals to modern sensibilities, but its success is also a tribute to China’s advanced filmmaking technology.
A report in the state-run Global Times in mid-February said Ne Zha 2’s ability to deliver a stunning visual experience was due to a combination of a highly skilled special effects team and cutting-edge rendering technology.
“In recent years, China’s film industry has achieved significant advancements in special effects, rendering, 3D and AI-driven filmmaking technologies, especially the success of domestic animated films, elevating China’s filmmaking capabilities to new heights,” the article concluded.
Looking ahead, a Beijing-based investor specialising in investing in and incubating hi-tech start-ups, who declined to be named, also believed 2025 would be an important turning point in China’s technological development.
He said that in recent years some areas of China’s tech sector, including the “new three” – solar cells, lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles – had already been at the forefront. But the recent boom in cutting-edge technologies allowed the outside world to see and believe in China’s strength, he said.
According to the investor, the rapid response of the financial sector illustrated this well. “Many foreign investment banks, including Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, are now reassessing the Chinese market because of the rise of Chinese tech companies, and are bullish on Chinese assets, resulting in a clear return of foreign capital,” he said.
Adding to the momentum is Beijing’s clear support for the private sector, particularly tech, signalled by a meeting on February 17 when President Xi Jinping brought together China’s top entrepreneurs for the first time since 2018.
Wang Zichen, a research fellow at the Centre for China and Globalisation (CCG), a leading Beijing-based non-governmental think tank, said China had made “remarkable strides” in technological innovation.
“These advancements underscore the country’s deep-rooted foundation in innovation, particularly within its market-driven economy, demonstrating resilience and determination in the face of formidable challenges.”
However, Wang noted that China still lagged behind the global frontier in certain areas – notably semiconductors – and said that in the short term these gaps “have been weaponised in great power competition, serving as tools for stronger nations to exert pressure”.
Zheng Yongnian, dean of the school of public policy at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Shenzhen campus, warned on social media recently that in the field of AI, there remained a big gap between Beijing and Washington in chip technology and data quality, “which is equally important – we need to be clear what DeepSeek has not changed”, he said.
In terms of brainpower, factors such as rising geopolitical tensions with the West and China’s growing scientific strength have made China an increasingly attractive destination for leading scientists in recent years.
However, CCG’s Wang stressed that the United States’ ability to attract the world’s top science and technology talent was unparalleled – an advantage that he said was still beyond China’s reach.
Academics also highlighted some weaknesses in China’s basic research.
Sun Yutao, a professor at Dalian University of Technology’s school of economics and management, said that in some aspects the contribution of Chinese scientists was not yet particularly prominent, such as making original, recognised scientific discoveries and winning the world’s most influential scientific awards.
He suggested that China’s scientific research should not be too oriented towards the country’s major needs, but should instead encourage more free exploration. At the same time, research institutes should also shoulder the responsibility of applied research.
In an email to the Post, Rao at Peking University criticised what he said was an unhealthy publication culture in the Chinese academic community.
“The fraction of true breakthroughs [by Chinese scientists] is not as good as one would like,” Rao said, adding that much was follow-up research. He said there was a tendency to publish papers for the sake of publishing and “not for scientific discoveries or technological inventions”.
In light of all this, Zang, the manufacturing expert, believed the competitive landscape between the two countries had not changed in any fundamental way.
“Technological competition is a comprehensive contest. The US has been the global technology leader for more than a century, an advantage that China cannot overturn with a handful of breakthroughs,” he said.
More from South China Morning Post:
- China wants to change the world with disruptive technologies. But what are they?
- In an arms race for tech and talent, China blitzes as the US retreats
- Trump calls for end to bipartisan US$52 billion Chips and Science Act
- As China sweeps top spots, chemistry seems to be dying in the US. Is this a power shift?
- Trump science policy nominee calls China most formidable technology, science competitor
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