Good evening. When the Chinese Communist Party sets out to dominate an industry of the future, it often does so for geopolitical reasons relative to the United States: green energy to render useless the U.S. Navy’s ability to block the Strait of Malacca; semiconductors to eliminate another “choke point” vulnerability; and quantum computing and hypersonic missile technologies to surpass U.S. military capabilities. But in at least one other area, the motivation is more humanitarian than Machiavellian. As Rachel Cheung writesChina is ahead of its peers in implementing artificial intelligence capabilities in the healthcare sector. If successful, the effort could finally help bridge the chasm between regions with near-Third World medical infrastructure and urban areas home to some of the world’s best hospitals. But is Beijing trying to do too much, too fast, in a sector where AI applications based on Chinese medical data will reproduce system flaws or, in the worst case, make potentially fatal errors?
Also in this week’s issue: Chinese crypto minersfriends or enemies?; Big Picture profiles Hengrui Pharma; a farewell conversation with Jin Liqun, President of the AIIB; and Brad Setser on Manipulation of Chinese currency.
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China in search of AI magic bullet
Dr. Mao Hongjing is a highly sought-after expert in depression and sleep disorders. He sees about 20 patients a day in Hangzhou, one of China’s most modern and attractive cities. Now check out his avatar that can advise 30,000 patients a day, according to the company whose healthcare AI app created it. And as Rachel Cheung writes in this week’s cover storythese tens of thousands of patients do not need to come to Hangzhou, but can access its expertise from some of the most medically underserved areas of the country. This is the promise of AI in healthcare in China. But is the promise real and, even if it is, who will pay the price?
Friend or foe?
China Banned Cryptocurrency Mining in 2021, But as Noah Berman writesThis has not stopped Chinese companies from dominating the crypto mining and related computer markets. Many of them are also active in the United States. In Washington, China hawks are beginning to look askance at these business refugees fleeing a hostile country, fearing that they pose a threat to American national security interests. On the other side of the argument, U.S. crypto miners fear becoming collateral damage if the Trump administration “ramps its way toward policies that needlessly harm U.S. miners, U.S. energy projects, and U.S. jobs based on unproven allegations.”
China’s largest pharmaceutical company and the power couple behind it
This week’s Big Picture topic Company in News profile is a state-owned Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Company, aka Hengrui Pharma. It is China’s largest pharmaceutical company and earlier this year struck a $500 million deal, which could ultimately reach $12 billion, with Britain’s GSK. Chairman Sun Piaoyang and his wife Zhong Huijian, who controls a rival pharmaceutical company, have a combined net worth of more than $36 billion, according to Forbes.
A Q&A session with Jin Liqun
Few people have done more to promote Chinese soft power than Jin Liqun. When the outgoing head of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was named head of the fledgling institution a decade ago, the Obama administration tried to dissuade U.S. allies from joining. They did it anyway, and under Jin’s leadership, the AIIB established itself as a credible and respected multinational lender with an internationally diverse staff.
In a farewell conversation with Andrew PeapleJin talks about the AIIB’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, lending to more projects beyond Asia, and the bank’s decision to freeze lending to projects in Russia and Belarus after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Jin Liqun
Illustration by Lauren Crow
How China is weakening the renminbi
China is quietly using its state banks to weaken the renminbi, Brad Setser writes in this week’s editorial. This has allowed the country’s trade surplus to exceed $1 trillion this year, despite the imposition of US tariffs. It is high time, he says, for the Trump administration to act.
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