Before arriving in China in 2005, I repeatedly came across a statement which was commonly bandied about on the internet, that being: ‘China is a third world country with first world technology’. China’s status as a developed, developing or third world country is open to much debate. One matter which is open to much less debate is the increasing importance of technology as a driving force in the opening up and reforming of China.

Beijingers queue for iPhone 4S. Photo: chinawhisper.com

The China of today

In my early days in China, I remember how it seemed the country was still playing catch-up in terms of consumer technology. I remember thinking how ‘quaint’ and outdated VCDs had seemed; how copycat brand logos and clunky sounding brand names such as Konka (whose brand logo seemed a little too reminiscent of Nokia’s) always elicited chortles from foreigners. These days China’s tech landscape is better defined and less rickety. 

Massive security teams needed to guard the slick Apple stores on the mainland, an explosion of online services such as group buy and the development of high-speed transport all serve as testimony to China’s love of and ever growing hunger for technology, be it on a consumer or state level.

Another example of China’s foothold in the field of high technology is the People’s Liberation Army-supported Beidou (Compass) navigation satellite system. It is predicted that Beidou will be a heavyweight contender in the satellite navigation market, jostling in competition with American (GPS), Russian and European satellite navigation systems, controlling 35 of the world’s 125 satellites predicted to be in the Earth’s orbit by 2020. Now with China’s much lauded space programme and its bids for stakes in the satellite technology business, it seems that not even the sky’s the limit.

Numbers don’t lie

The evidence of this new obsession is most evident in internet related statistics. By the end of 2011, the total number of Internet users in China reached 505 million, a 121 million increase over 2009’s figures. At the dawn of 2012, people are connected virtually all of their waking hours, be it for recreation, work or day-to-day communication. There are believed to be 28.75 million active blogs in China.

Figures in relation to production and export are just as remarkable: it was recorded that in 2006 China surpassed American high tech exports at 16.9% of the world’s total exports in comparison to America’s 16.8%. Experts consider this to be only the tip of the iceberg.

Naysayers make themselves heard…

If one prefers to see the glass as half empty, one might argue that a space project (aside from its military uses) is somewhat a vanity project for a country with many people still living in poverty; just as one might argue that shiny, simplistic toys with mesmerizing graphics (Apple products) are not really doing anything to help civilization as a whole. From this speculation you might also come to the conclusion that China’s tech explosion is not of much benefit to anyone except the giant corporations which gave it birth, granting them the wherewithal to let their profits snowball even further whilst allowing the masses to sink into some kind of LCD touch screen induced apathetical social and moral sleep.

…And the optimists retort

There is, however, one shining tech beacon amongst the droning consumer culture: China’s huge investment in renewable energy technology. With the world’s largest wind farm and billions of RMB ploughed into solar technology, China is definitely facing the looming global energy crisis full on, in a way that many other countries have failed to do. In fact, China now plans to meet 17% of its energy demands in 2050 by wind power with the industry’s investment growing to 1.9 trillion dollars and 1,000 GW. Although China is commonly criticized for its monolithic carbon footprint, insatiable appetite for non-renewables and polluted cities, the country is clearly allocating much greater funding to alternative energy sources than any other country in the world.    

From the huge waves made in Chinese social media by the passing of Apple CEO Steve jobs to the growth of high technology and renewable energy in China, it is clear that technology has been subject to a meteoric rise in the past ten years, embedding itself in both the collective consciousness and the national landscape. It seems that the future of technological advancement is now entwined with China’s future. What this means for China and the world as whole nobody knows exactly. All we know is that interesting times lie ahead of China in a digital future.

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Keywords: technology in China modern China Apple products China alternative energy China