China Decode: China Is Beating the U.S. in Space?!

Alice Han and James Kynge break down how China is rapidly closing the gap in the global space race, with record-breaking launches, ambitious moon missions, and technology that’s raising eyebrows in Washington. Then, a massive $2 trillion generational wealth transfer is underway — but with no inheritance tax in place, what does that mean for inequality, government revenue, and the future of “common prosperity”? And finally: from robotic arms in orbit to robots in the kitchen. As AI and automation spread across China’s economy — even into dim sum kitchens — regulators are stepping in. But is China actually setting the global standard for how AI should be governed? Subscribe on Substack for ad-free episodes and much more! 👉 chinadecode.profgmedia.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:29James Kynge?

  I think China's space strategy is not primarily about space. It's all about Planet Earth. And particularly how to dominate the global order on Earth, of course, by enlisting space to gain advantage. And as you've just said, you know, when you look at what China and of course the US is doing in space, there's the military domain and there's the commercial domain and then there's this sort of fuzzy hybrid domain, dual use, I suppose, that could be military, could be commercial. And the more you look at all of the space furniture up there, the more you scratch your head and think, well, could that be military? Could that be commercial? You know, there's a lot of interoperability.

• 2:17Alice Han?

  Welcome to China Decode. I'm Alice Han.

• 2:19James Kynge?

  And I'm James Kynge.

• 2:20Alice Han?

  In today's episode of China Decode, we're discussing China's huge strides in the space race, the looming $2 trillion generational wealth transfer, and regulating dim sum automation. That's all coming up, but first, let's do a quick check-in with how the markets are starting the week. On Monday, Chinese stock markets were closed in observance of the Labor Day holiday. The Shanghai Composite ended the month of April up 5.66%, and the Shenzhen component surged over 12% thanks to strong PMI data and notable gains in several tech stocks. China's manufacturing PMI for April was 50.3%, slightly above forecast,

• 3:00Alice Han?

  suggesting expansion in the manufacturing sector. Shares of Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone and EV maker, closed 6.8% higher in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today. All right, let's get into it. In the last five years, they've landed a rover on Mars, completed a space station, and collected samples from the far side of the moon. We're talking not about the US, but China. And in 2025 alone, the country executed over 90 orbital launches, setting a new national record. And in the tightening space race, China is also pulling ahead with innovations like a giant robotic arm to service satellites in space, a space telescope with a wider view than the Hubble, and reusable rockets

• 3:45Alice Han?

  to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX. China is also actively developing rockets that can take off from water-based platform. James, we've talked about space in the last few episodes, and it seems like with Elon Musk IPO-ing SpaceX, we've made space great again. But China is also a key part of this, and some of the startling videos that I've seen... Like of that orbital arm in space seem very futuristic, but it's it's what's actually currently happening. And certainly, as with any kind of technology, has direct contemporary use cases, potentially even military use cases. How are you seeing China's startling advancements in the space race?

• 4:27James Kynge?

  Well, yeah, Alice, I mean, it may be an obvious point, but I think China's space strategy is not primarily about space. It's all about planet Earth and particularly how to dominate the global order on Earth, of course, by enlisting space to gain advantage. And as you've just said, you know, when you look at what China and of course the US is doing in space, there's a military domain and there's a commercial domain and then there's this sort of fuzzy hybrid domain, dual use, I suppose, that could be military, could be commercial. And the more you look at all of the space furniture up there, the more you scratch your head and think, well, could that be military? Could that be commercial?

• 5:09James Kynge?

  You know, there's a lot of interoperability. But when I was doing a bit of research on this, I must say, I came across one quote from a China military expert that really stopped me in my tracks. This was in a story by the Financial Times and it's written by, as I said, a military expert in a textbook for Chinese military officers. So this isn't sort of for public consumption. This is something directed at the Chinese military, which I think shows that it's it's pretty authentic. And basically, this expert says that China intends to control the Earth by controlling space.

• 5:54James Kynge?

  Let me just give you the whole quote because I think it is really quite startling. He says, "Looking up at the skies today, we see that space is already shrouded in the smoke of potential conflict." And then he continues by saying, The potential for high returns, the ability to control Earth by controlling space, represents a powerful strategic and military incentive. Therefore, the development of space warfare capabilities has become a focal point of the arms race. So I think that puts it pretty clearly.

• 6:36James Kynge?

  China sees space quite nakedly as a power game. And you've already mentioned the satellite with a grappling arm that sort of sidles up to other satellites. And the US intelligence caught, I suppose, a space-based video of this. They saw this Chinese satellite with a grappling arm sidling up to another defunct Chinese satellite and literally picking it up and hurling it into what's called a graveyard orbit. That all happened more than 36,000 kilometers above the Earth. The Chinese satellite with the arm is called the Shujian 21, and it didn't take long for

• 7:21James Kynge?

  the US military establishment to wonder, well, if it can do that with a defunct Chinese satellite, then maybe it can do it the same thing to one of our satellites. And the US has more than 8,000 satellites in space, including 80 spy satellites, or around 80 spy satellites, some of which are trained on China's territory and are literally monitoring every square meter of China's territory. And you can imagine that China might not want one of those spy satellites to be doing that. So in 2023, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the US warned that

• 8:03James Kynge?

  this episode, the one I've just described, proves China's ability to operate space-to-base counter-space weapons. So in other words, weapons that can degrade US capabilities in space. And I think, you know, what we're kind of... Evolving into here is not only a huge commercial market, as defined by the number of satellites that are going up into space and all the different uses they have, and their crucial nature to the economy here on Earth, but also an equally vigorous, military-driven space race. How are you seeing it, Alice?

• 8:42Alice Han?

  Well, I completely agree with what you're saying, James. And what's interesting to me is the growth in spending that we've seen. Just to give people a sense, the US is still leading in the space tech investment era, and this is accounting for both public and private investment. They did around $7.3 billion of space tech investment last year. That's 60% of global funding, by far the largest source of funding for space technology. But China is catching up. And right now, I believe it's somewhere around $3.8 billion that it invested in the commercial space sector in 2025. For just for reference, 10 years ago, that was only about $340 million.

• 9:26Alice Han?

  So we've seen a sort of 10x rise, so to speak, in the last decade. And certainly, I could see, you know, further growth moving forward because it is very clear in also the Five Year Plan, as well as the March Lianghui, remember, for you recall, two months ago. In the documents, there was a reference to China being a space superpower. You know, a manufacturing superpower, technological superpower, but also a space superpower. So there's a lot of attention being paid by the Chinese government towards what you rightly call Julius use technologies, James, that are being deployed in this ecosystem. What was interesting to me also about that on-orbit robotic arm is that I believe it's a private company that is supplying this technology.

• 10:10Alice Han?

  I think it's Sunyuan that is providing commercial space technology to the Chinese government. So there is really a private-public ecosystem establishing around space tech that isn't too dissimilar from what we're seeing in the States. And this is all happening in a time where increasingly, Western investors and observers are really fixated on space as the next technological frontier. Everyone is going to be watching with bated breath for the biggest IPO in history this year, which is SpaceX. So I think this may become another political issue potentially between the US and China as people get more and more interested in space technology. One other thing that I will say is that, you know, space was a big part of China's

• 10:54Alice Han?

  strategy going back to 2013 with the launch of the Belt and Road strategies, referenced as part of China's broader Belt and Road strategy. So this has been a long time in the making and it will be interesting to see, you know, how it shapes up in the US-China, not just talks coming up very soon, but sort of longer term strategic competition.

• 11:14James Kynge?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, it's hard to know who will eventually win the space race. It's clear that when it comes to commercial presence in space, the US is far ahead. It's got a much bigger share of the space economy, which according to the Space Foundation is worth about 613 billion US dollars. So it's a huge market already. The US has currently about 55% share of that and China's much, much less at about 8%. But China's really, really moving now. You mentioned more than 90 orbital launches. Of course, these orbital launches are sending something into space like a satellite or a spaceship.

• 11:57James Kynge?

  The US is currently doing about 180 launches per year, mostly driven by SpaceX. But China's doing a lot of other things too. They've had a few other milestones. They had a mission to the far side of the moon. That's the dark side of the moon for Pink Floyd fans. It's also completed its own low orbit space station called Tiangong. There's a lot of activity going on in Tiangong. There are modules going up there, meeting, you know, demand for further advances. My favorite space fact when it comes to China is that China is actually officially trying to find signs of aliens.

• 12:43James Kynge?

  China has a huge satellite dish. It's five hundred metres across. They call it Tianyin or sky's eye or heaven's eye. And it's it's it's there in in southwestern China, listening for signs of an extraterrestrial life. I mean, because it's, I think, the biggest dish in the world, it probably has a higher capability of listening for that kind of life. Um, and recently, well, in June twenty twenty two, there was a report in the Chinese Science and Technology Daily that said that researchers had found multiple suspicious narrowband signals. Uh, so there was a great flurry of excitement.

• 13:27James Kynge?

  Maybe the Chinese Tianyin had found some sort of sign of extraterrestrial life. But in fact, later on, scientists in the US said that this was almost certainly radio interference. But I just sort of think that it just shows the level of China's ambition, you know? This is not something crazy. They really are listening for extraterrestrial life. Um, I think that just shows they're leaving no stone unturned.

• 13:56Alice Han?

  That reminds me of the book series. Did you ever read it? The Three Body Problem, San Ti by Liu Cixin. It's about these Chinese, um, you know, astrophysicists who are also looking for uh extraterrestrial activity and they come in the form of Tricelerians. Highly recommend the book. And one last point, it can't be overstated how important satellite technology is. And we've definitely seen that being used in Russia, Ukraine. We've seen it being used more recently in Iran. Uh, and it's it's been critical for the supply of intelligence and tracking used to guide precision missiles and ICBMs. So just to apply it to the current day, you know, China having capabilities to really append American satellites out in space can materially affect

• 14:41Alice Han?

  the outcomes of current battles that we're seeing in Russia, Ukraine, in Iran, and potentially even, you know, closer to home. So I thought that was worth, definitely worth flagging. Okay, we'll be back with more after a quick break. Stay with us.

• 15:01Scott Galloway?

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• 16:04Scott Galloway?

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• 17:11Scott Galloway?

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• 17:56Scott Galloway?

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• 18:18Alice Han?

  Welcome back. For the first time in its modern history, China is grappling with what to do about a massive generational wealth transfer and the fact that almost none of it will be taxed. Chinese citizens with fortunes above $5 million are expected to pass down roughly $2.1 trillion over the next decade. But the country, only really allowing entrepreneurship and a doorway to wealth since the 1970s, has no inheritance tax at all and limited property tax and tax on accumulated wealth. This is coming at a time when the government could use the additional tax revenues. James, you know, I'm an economist focusing on China. It's been quite interesting to see. The decline in fiscal revenues, I know this sounds very wonkish, but it's really important

• 19:03Alice Han?

  to understand where the government is today, is the huge decline in fiscal revenues largely driven by land sales declining and property values declining. So last year alone, we saw a 15% decline in land sales revenue going to predominantly the local governments. And we've seen just fiscal revenues as a share of GDP continue to decrease. China's fiscal revenues as share of GDP are one of the lowest in the world. It's only about 15%. Just for reference, the OECD average is around 34%. So just to give people a sense of how cash strapped the local governments are, this, I think, really indicates the shape of things. And this is why the new five-year plan's discussion about tax reform, in particular

• 19:47Alice Han?

  the capital gains tax and the inheritance tax, is super interesting. Why do you think it hasn't happened yet? And what it could mean moving forward for society and the economy?

• 19:57James Kynge?

  Well, Alice, you highlighted this topic, and I must say, since you have done so, and I've been looking into it a bit, I really do think that it's indicative of so much in China. And I think at the middle of it is a bit of a mystery, at least an ostensible mystery to me. Because when you look at China, you find what is one of the world's most unequal societies. And yet, this is a country still controlled by the Communist Party of China. Of course, we know that it is only communist in name. Hegelian communism went out at least a couple of decades ago. But if you look at the numbers, China is more of an unequal society than any of the capitalist

• 20:41James Kynge?

  G7 nations, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US. It's more unequal than any of those countries. I'll come to the statistics I'm using, but my main point is here, why has it taken China so long to come up with an inheritance tax? When it could use an inheritance tax to take money from the very rich when the patriarchs and the matriarchs of the rich families die? They could use an inheritance tax to redistribute some of that enormous wealth to other people who need it much more. And yet, as you said, Alice, China hasn't done this. Um, and so I, I really do wonder about this.

• 21:26James Kynge?

  So at, at the center of this topic, to me anyway, is a big question mark. I, I don't know what your reflections would be, but before I throw it back to you, let me just give you some numbers. The way in which wealth inequality is measured in a society is this Gini coefficient. And there are, there are various different data sets that come up with this. And the Chinese government also used to publish the Gini coefficient from China. And in 2021, the Gini coefficient showed that China was over what is 0.45. That is, uh, put simply, a threshold that shows high inequality for a society.

• 22:09James Kynge?

  Right. The US for, for comparison was about 0.4. So that's lower than China and places like Canada and Germany and Sweden were hovering around 0.35. So you can see that according to the numbers, China is genuinely one of the most unequal societies in the world, in spite of the fact that it is still ruled by a communist party, at least one that claims to be communist in name anyway. But let me, could I throw it back to you, Alice? Why has China taken so long to move on this or to consider moving on this very important topic of inheritance?

• 22:46Alice Han?

  Well, I look at um, the history of taxes and, and what is interesting, I think it is a legacy of the Soviet system, is that China is very good at recording and, and taxing and to some degree controlling the supply side or the production side rather than the consumption side. So historically, you know, if you look back to the eighties onwards, uh, a lot of the policies is about, um, you know, subsidizing or spurring, or even to some extent, price controlling, um, the supply side. And really only in recent years have we seen reforms to really understand the consumption side of things. So we, we had reforms very recently on value added tax, which is effectively, um, you know, shaping consumption related outcomes.

• 23:31Alice Han?

  And there was talk in the last few years, ongoing talk about property tax. But that is pretty much gone and it wasn't in this year's five-year plan, even though it was mentioned many times in the previous one. Because the government understands that that is going to provide very little in terms of revenues, given that we're fifteen, twenty, even potentially more percent down relative to pre-crackdown trend in terms of property evaluations. So the discussion now, I think, has been revived, you know, after so many years because right now, I think the central government is really scratching its head to figure out where else it can generate revenues, especially now that it can't really rely on land sales.

• 24:13Alice Han?

  It can't really rely as much on corporate tax and income tax in a period in which, you know, growth is slowing. And it remains reluctant, although this has been touted as one policy choice, to do reforms to the export tax rebates, effectively getting rid of some of the subsidies on the taxes for Chinese exporters, because they ultimately don't want to harm and hinder China's export machine, you know, basically they want to protect the Chinese manufacturers. So what else can they do? I think this is pretty low-hanging fruit for them to really target what is going to be one of the biggest wealth transfers in contemporary history and certainly in Chinese

• 24:58Alice Han?

  history. And then the question is, how are they going to do this? I think that ultimately, they're going to have to pilot this in certain cities to see how it works. And then they're going to have to figure out the division of fiscal revenues between the central and the local governments. And here, I think maybe the local governments might again be screwed because the central government feels that it probably needs to replenish its coffers. We have an overall fiscal deficit that is nearing 10% potentially this year, which is a historical high. So I think this is all coming to a head because predominantly there are little other choices in terms of tax sources, tax revenues for the central and local governments.

• 25:41Alice Han?

  And you know, I predict that in the next few years, we'll probably start to see some of the piloting of these inheritance taxes. But it's interesting because I remember reading a couple of years ago, Thomas Piketty, you know, writing about how, you know, China needed to have these inheritance taxes because ultimately what he called patrimonial capitalism was going to be very bad for China. And so then I recall, James, doing my own historical research on the Gini coefficient in the last two to three decades, it has actually expanded since really reform and opening. And it's been, you know, a flip side to the story of high level growth is that a lot

• 26:22Alice Han?

  of inequality has sort of settled in the top echelons of Chinese society. But it's interesting because, you know, the government also does care about equality. I do believe, you know, hence the terminology common prosperity that Xi Jinping coined. There was also a discussion a couple of years back about an olive shaped economic distribution as opposed to an upside down triangle, meaning that you would try to create a bigger middle class like in America and elsewhere in the developed world. But it's hard to see that happening and maybe, maybe having this wealth tax could be a step in that direction, although I'm somewhat skeptical.

• 26:58James Kynge?

  Yeah, well, I mean, they've certainly got plenty of billionaires that they could tax when obviously those people die. Those numbers are, China has about 539 billionaires, according to Forbes magazine this year. Their total net worth is estimated at about 2.2 trillion US dollars. That, by the way, is equivalent to the size of the entire Australian economy. And this is obviously, it's quite a lot less than the US. The US has 989 billionaires, according to Forbes magazine. But China is the country with the second highest number of billionaires.

• 27:41James Kynge?

  So there's a lot of fat that the Chinese government could tax if they, if they decided to go down this road, and I think you are of the opinion. That they will. My sense of this, when I was thinking about why China hasn't done this much earlier is that I think China wanted to create a kind of dog eat dog, go getter economy where winner takes, maybe not it all, but winner takes a lot. Um, and those that are left behind, they're left behind and they're hungry because they've been left behind. That's my kind of back of the envelope explanation, but I do find this a a rather curious topic, actually, similar to why China hasn't had a property tax.

• 28:26James Kynge?

  I've never really been able to understand that and I, I do wonder whether there is some political reason for this that none of us know about, whether there's some power struggle at the top of the Communist Party with some people pro, some people anti, and nobody finally making decision. But I, as I say, that is just speculation. I have no evidence on this.

• 28:48Alice Han?

  Yeah, I heard back in the day, there are rumors that, you know, some interests that are connected with developers didn't want to have property taxes. And there was a debate or tension between the localities and the central government as to who gets what part of the property tax revenues. So I, I, I think it all becomes political at the end of the day. One last thing that I'll end on that I think ties into modern day Chinese society is an argument that I hear a couple of times from my friends in China, which is that tung ping has become an issue again, this, this idea of lying flat in China or taking it easy. And I'm hearing that this kind of wealth transfer for the next generation, who are largely only children, because the one child policy

• 29:29Alice Han?

  means that they don't have to worry too much about working or striving and working really, really hard like their parents do. And that they'll all be okay because they have all these assets and the wealth transfer from their parents all concentrated in this one child. And so it all connects to society and to contemporary events with, with Gen Z at the end of the day. So we should definitely watch the space and how it affects, you know, Gen Z unemployment, the tung ping movement. Okay, let's take one last quick break. Stay with us.

• 30:03Speaker 00

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• 31:04Scott Galloway?

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• 32:12Alice Han?

  Welcome back. We end today with dim sum, namely the increasing automation used in dim sum production across China. The making of the delicate dumplings and other bite-sized dishes has long been considered an art form, especially in southern China where the practice originated. Starting May 1 in Guangzhou, tea houses will have to disclose whether their dim sum is handmade or produced via non-traditional means, otherwise known as manufactured. There are also reports that restaurants in eastern China are actually using AI robots to cook dishes and save costs. It might all seem trivial, but in some ways, these changes to the food industry are indicative of a broader trend in China.

• 32:53Alice Han?

  The increase in regulation around AI and robots as these industries rapidly develop. James, I did research on this, and what was interesting to me is these two cases that just happened in the course of the last two years, one in Beijing and then in one in Hangzhou, where they separately ruled that the companies couldn't fire their workers simply on the grounds of AI. They cited China's labor contract law from over a decade ago and basically said that the company's decision to fire their employees in question did not constitute "major changes in objective circumstances", which is a clause that is normally reserved for natural disasters or unexpected shutdowns. This, I think, is interesting, and it could be a precursor for

• 33:38Alice Han?

  further regulation in the AI labor realm, which is really, I think, the first of its kind globally. But it hits the nail on the head when it comes to some of these concerns people have of job displacement, of AI automation, and of increasing unemployment concerns. What's your take on this, and do you think we're moving into a realm where China could be a leader globally in AI labor laws?

• 34:04James Kynge?

  Well, just going back to dim sum briefly before we get back onto that one. You know, Alice, I went to a couple of cooking schools in China to learn how to make dim sum, and I must admit that nothing I made came out looking remotely like what you would get in a restaurant. One of my teachers memorably said that "I was no good at making dim sum, but I was good at making didn't some." So I...

• 34:32James Kynge?

  Yes, so but I I know that you as a former contestant on the TV show Master Chef, you probably make a very mean dim sum, am I right?

• 34:41Alice Han?

  I I do, I do, I do practice the art of folding. Yes, I I enjoy that. I have to say that I had heard that maybe you maybe you had heard this at at Din Tai Fung, they apparently precise you have to have eighteen pleats. And they all obviously, when you go to a Din Tai Fung chain anywhere in the world, they have people doing the folds of the dim sum. But I think that they have mandated globally that you need to have eighteen folds and twenty one grams per dim sum. That's just a side side note.

• 35:11James Kynge?

  Wow, it's amazing you know that off the top of your head. Yeah, but anyway, back to AI and AI taking people's jobs. I mean, obviously, it's broader than AI. I think it's amazing that a robot is now dexterous enough to make dim sum. That's basically my point. I mean, it is hard to make dim sum. It really is hard from a sort of for a for for a human being like me, maybe a clumsy one like me, you know. So a robot can now do this. We've got AI, which obviously is has a cognitive ability, which is now superior to human beings in many different planes. We've got robots that are now dexterous enough to make dim sum.

• 35:56James Kynge?

  We've got robots that are now beating the world record holder in half marathons by nearly ten minutes. And then we've got factory automation all over the park in China. I'm not surprised the Chinese government is getting really concerned about people's jobs, the big job shock that's coming. On my recent trip to China, everybody I spoke to, who wasn't in the AI robotics industry, seemed to be genuinely worried about this. So I'm really not surprised the Chinese government is getting concerned. And, you know, my sense of it is, to be quite frank, I think China's going to lose this.

• 36:38James Kynge?

  I don't think China can put this genie back in the bottle. You know, China is coming up with all kinds of rules and regulations and it's even proposed setting up a a global body to regulate AI known as the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation. And the aim of a lot of these Chinese rules and regulation is to prevent the job shock from AI and automation and robotics onto society. But frankly, I can't see how they're going to do it. Because once a technology is available to do something much more efficiently and cheaply, then my experience of the world is that that is what generally happens.

• 37:21Alice Han?

  I think what will be interesting is, you know, whether or not the central government is going to step in and issue regulations. I mean, several years ago, it did offer pretty sweeping regulations on deep fake technologies, AI algorithms, data transfers. And, you know, I I don't maybe I take the opposite side of the bat and I think that that there will be a momentum for the central government to sort of come in and start to mandate the thresholds by which certain people should lose their jobs due to AI. Because if, to your point, James, this happens so quickly and the genie's out of the bottle, this is

• 38:02Alice Han?

  going to create a huge crisis. And historically, when a crisis happens, I think Beijing tends to, you know, intervene or come in very quickly. I mean, we saw that obviously during Covid. But even on the flip side, when things get too hot in an industry, we see them move, I would say, quite quickly and retroactively as opposed to proactively to crack down on a sector. I think about, you know, for instance, the 2021 tech crackdown and and ed tech crackdown on on platforms. So I wouldn't be surprised if if we start to hear a lot of stories about unemployment, about job losses, that the central government is going to start to issue regulations that really try to protect workers. Because at the end of the day, unemployment,

• 38:44Alice Han?

  to your point on previous episodes, James, is a huge, not just economic, but political, social concern for the government. And when I was in China, I heard from a pretty good friend of mine. Who's very plugged into these things. And he said, look, you know, you thought E Vs were big. Robotics are going to be even bigger from China. You know, E Vs at their height, you know, were about a thousand. Now it's dwindled down to a hundred, under a hundred, uh, E V different uh, makers. Robotics, we're looking at the hundred thousand or even more. And and rather than having, you know, these general purpose robots, these are robots that are going to be finely tuned for specific tasks.

• 39:24Alice Han?

  Like to your point, a specific robot for folding dim sum, a specific robot for running races, a specific robot um, for, you know, painting cars, for instance. So I think we're in for a real shock globally. When we see the influx of robots that might be even bigger than the influx of Chinese E Vs that we're currently living. But how how did you find it on your trip recently?

• 39:48James Kynge?

  No, I mean, I I I I was absolutely amazed at that very point. I went to an exhibition center in southern Beijing where they had robots that had been designed for all kinds of specific tasks. You know, um, I I sort of in my mind, I saw I thought of it as speciation of robots. So you don't have a general purpose robot that can do everything. You have a robot that's able to do surgery, have a robot that's able to hand people at the chemists the drugs that they need. You have a robot that's able to score goals in soccer. Um, you know, you have a robot that's able to shoot hoops. You have, you know, all of these robots are designed for specific tasks, which is going to mean that they're much better at doing those tasks and the humans have less and less chance to compete with them.

• 40:33James Kynge?

  And of course, robots don't eat, they don't sleep, they have natural advantages that humans simply will never be able to match. And so this is why I left China really very concerned. I mean, obviously, I was thinking about China in this context because China is so far ahead of the rest of the world. It's moving into this brave new automated world quicker than any other country. Um, but I'm also concerned about our countries, um, you know, in the West. This is coming to us next and it's not going to be long. And I feel that here in the UK, for instance, we're completely unprepared.

• 41:11Alice Han?

  Yeah, I completely agree. All right, James, you know what time it is. It is prediction time. As you peer into the future this week, what do you see?

• 41:18James Kynge?

  Well, Alice, my prediction is a kind of breaking news prediction today, in fact, because the news is just coming out that even though the World Cup, that is the World Football or Soccer Cup, is only weeks away, FIFA, the governing body of football worldwide, has failed so far to sign a commercial deal with China. This is a massive story because in the last World Cup in 2022, China accounted for forty nine point eight percent of the total TV hours, well, not only TV but other platforms as well, total visual hours worldwide from that particular World Cup.

• 42:03James Kynge?

  So if China doesn't sign, it is a huge blow to FIFA. And we are right now at the eleventh hour. So I'm going to stick my neck out and give a bit of prediction here. I think that FIFA will have to suck up whatever lowball offer the Chinese are offering because they're desperate. And this will probably be very painful for FIFA. But I think China's got the whip hand on this one. What are you seeing, Alice?

• 42:32Alice Han?

  My prediction is more in the realm of the upcoming Trump visit to China. It's clear that a couple of items will be on the agenda. Trade, technology, even Iran and potentially, I think, North Korea might even come up on the agenda. But I think more importantly, my prediction for the second half of the year, you know, after a series of meetings between Trump and Xi that I believe will happen, not just the Trump visit to Beijing, Xi, I think, will go to the US towards the end of the year. I think there will be a big push from Beijing to get some kind of a landmark deal in the form of a Chinese green tech investment.

• 43:14Alice Han?

  In the US, and I'm thinking in particular some kind of JV structure, maybe it's a BYD Ford whereby there's a major announcement of a Chinese green tech factory being set up in America, manufacturing effectively EVs on American soil. And even although there are some interests in Washington that would push against this, I think that it might be enough incentive on both sides to have some kind of a strategic deal to point towards. And certainly it was referenced many times in my China trip. And it seems that a lot of Chinese factory makers are chomping at the bit to get presence in America. They do want to create factories and bypass these tariffs and restrictions that they're

• 43:58Alice Han?

  currently facing as exporters from China. So that's my prediction. We'll have to see if it bears out as well because it's very much subject to the US-China relationship as it develops. All right, that's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to China Decode. This is a production of Prof G Media. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Talk to you again next week.

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