Why China Will Win the Future
There is a growing confidence among officials in Beijing that China is rising even as the West declines, writes Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. To understand why, look in part at the industries of the future.“More significant than the raw growth figures is China’s success in the new economy and in cutting-edge technologies. The Chinese point, with justifiable pride, to the fact that the country is well ahead of the U.S. and Europe in mobile-payment technology. China has made faster progress towards a ‘cashless society’ than most developed economies of the West. It is routine for Chinese consumers to pay for small items, such as food at a street stall, using their mobile phones. Alipay and WeChat Pay, the most common mobile payments systems, have become symbols of Chinese innovation; both the government and the private sector are confident of many more breakthroughs in the coming decade in a range of fields including robotics, drones, green technology and artificial intelligence,” Rachman writes.
“The growing sophistication of the Chinese economy will challenge Western assumption (increasingly, just a hope) that U.S. and European companies can continue to dominate the high-tech economy, leaving China to concentrate on the lower end of the value chain. China’s emergence as a major exporter of capital also means that its companies will inevitably increase their presence as owners of physical and intellectual assets in the West.”
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