China's Week, May 10
Real fusion energy by 2027, Supercomputer 2x faster than Titan, Massive export jump, New hi-tech warships roll off the ramps and much, much more
Science & Technology
The Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST) nuclear fusion reactor will produce five times the energy it uses in 2027.
Tianhe-2 supercomputer achieved processing speeds of 33.9 petaflops (1000 trillion calculations) per second. America’s Titan is second at 17.6 petaflops per second.
China’s top quantum computer, Tianyan-504, features a 504-qubit chip–half America’s Atom’s. Its strength is its integration with a cloud platform for broad accessibility.
Drones produce 19 million gallons of additional precipitation over Xinjiang, using just 2.2 lb. of silver iodid. That’s enough to fill 30 2m, Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Economy & Trade
China's exports grew 8.1% in April.
US revokes “unenforceable” rule restricting AI chip exports.
3.08 million new urban jobs created in Q1, up 50,000 YoY, 5.3% unemployment. 314 million domestic May Day trips, up 6.4%. Tourist spending rose 8%.
The Canton Fair deals rose 3% to $25.44 billion. A record 288,938 overseas buyers,
59% of then first-time visitors, offset lower numbers from the US.
600 cargo planes fly from China to Europe nightly, transporting 800 million duty-free parcels to France alone and 4.6 billion parcels in Europe.
Environment
Shenzen’s incinerator daily burns 5,000 tons of trash cleanly, but it’s running out of garbage, even digging up buried garbage to keep its furnaces alight.
Wind and solar power generation capacity hit 1,482 GW by the end of March, exceeding fossil fuel-based thermal power capacity for the first time ever.
Governance
Diplomacy & Geopolitics
“The slow and ineffective US response during the early stages of the outbreak set an appalling example to the international community and made the US performance in handling the pandemic the worst of all countries. Instead of facing this issue squarely and reflecting on its shortcomings, the US government has tried to shift the blame and divert people's attention by shamelessly politicizing SARS-CoV-2 origins tracing”. – Government White Paper
ASEAN +3 announced the use of RMB as a regional trading and financial currency. The US$ ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ and secondary sanctions are dead.
Israeli military operation in Gaza is a kind of "dress rehearsal" for a possible future conflict with China say US military legal experts.
FM Wang Yi asked the world five questions:
Shall we allow the world to regress into a lawless jungle where might makes right?
Shall we allow one country's self-interest to override the collective good of all others?
Shall we stand idle as international rules are trampled and discarded?
Will any nation truly be able to protect its own interests through compromise and flinching?
Shall we submit to a unipolar hegemony bent on dominance, or shall we forge a multipolar world built on equality and order?
Defense
The 30 kt., 6,000t 054B frigate has 32 VLS cells. Its electric drive generates 30 MW giving it a 5,000 nm range.
Two Type 055 guided-missile cruisers were launched in Q1, each with 112 vertical launch system cells (VLS) part of a fleet of 16 Renhai Class.
An off-the shelf, $70,000 spectrum analyzer can pinpoint LPI radars in US missile defense systems, B-2 bombers, F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters, nuclear submarines and combat drones within 0.5 inches – despite electronic jamming.
The US has significantly accelerated the delivery of advanced military equipment purchased by Taiwan.