A few days ago, Unitree Robotics captivated audiences with the world’s first robot boxing tournament, a spectacle that showcased the fusion of engineering precision and creative design. This event exemplifies the dynamic innovation landscape in China, where design and technology converge to push boundaries. It also underscores the opportunities available for UK innovators to engage with China’s burgeoning tech ecosystem.

The Design Intelligence Award (DIA), now in its 10th edition, stands as a testament to this spirit of innovation.  As one of the world’s most prestigious award programmes, the DIA offers a platform for designers, entrepreneurs and innovators to gain recognition and access to the Chinese market. This year marks the fifth consecutive partnership between the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) and the DIA, reflecting our commitment to fostering UK-China collaboration in design and innovation.

The DIA is inviting participants to explore how design can drive sustainable development, technological advancement, and societal well-being. With a total award fund of 5 million RMB (approximately £600,000), the DIA not only recognises outstanding design but also facilitates the commercialisation of innovative ideas.

The significance of engaging with China’s market cannot be overstated. According to the UK Department for Business and Trade’s “Trade and Investment Factsheet” published in May 2025, total trade in goods and services between the UK and China remained close to £100 billion mark in the four quarters to the end of Q4 2024.  China kept its position as the UK’s fifth-largest trading partner, accounting for 5.5% of total UK trade.

Peter Burnett, CEO of CBBC, emphasises the role of design in this context: “Design is a powerful enabler of innovation and a key strength of the UK’s global offer.  As China deepens its focus on high-quality growth, there is clear potential for British businesses to co-create solutions across priority sectors, from sustainable products to next-generation health technologies, and beyond,” he said.

New for 2025, the DIA introduces two entry routes: the established Product Group and the newly launched Innovation Incubation Group. The latter offers participants the opportunity to co-create solutions to real-world challenges with leading enterprises such as Alibaba, Unitree Robotics, Rokid, Fourier Intelligence, Deep Robotics, and BrainCo, unlocking unparalleled opportunities for collaboration and market entry.  For those eager to chart their own course, the X Track within the same group provides the freedom to develop and showcase independent innovations, making space for bold and original ideas.

It is worth noting that UK institutions have already established partnerships with these companies:

• Alibaba Cloud has collaborated with the University of Reading’s Henley Business School to launch a Skills Centre in the UK, focusing on cloud computing, big data, and AI.
• Fourier Intelligence has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK’s National Robotarium to advance rehabilitation robotics.
• Unitree Robotics has engaged with the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s RACE team, showcasing their humanoid and quadruped robots.

These collaborations highlight the mutual interest and potential for UK innovators to contribute to and benefit from China’s innovation landscape.

As CBBC’s sector lead for tech and innovation, healthcare and life sciences, I encourage UK entrepreneurs, designers, and innovators to seize this opportunity. Participating in the DIA can open doors to new markets, partnerships, and avenues for growth.  With China’s emphasis on high-quality development and the UK’s strengths in design and innovation, the synergy between our nations has never been more promising.

The free submission deadline for this year’s DIA is 20^th June 2025. Late submissions will be accepted until 20^th September 2025, and by quoting the invitation code UK2025-1VCVSKF, applicants can waive the standard late fee. This opportunity for CBBC Focus readers reflects our shared mission to support UK innovators in accessing growth markets like China. If you’re not yet a CBBC member, now is the perfect time to explore our services and join a community committed to helping UK organisations succeed in China.

Click here to start the application process for the 2025 Design Intelligence Award

Elinor Greenhouse is CBBC’s Senior Adviser for Tech and Innovation, Healthcare & Life Sciences.  For inquiries, contact Elinor at Elinor.Greenhouse@cbbc.org.

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In 2019, China surpassed the US for number of patents registered, with patents for inventions growing 30% last year to over 700,000. As a whole, China’s patents aren’t considered to be the same quality as some countries, but the ratio of high-quality patents has doubled in the past five years. In 2021, the country climbed into the top-dozen countries in the global innovation rankings. Like many manufacturing countries before it, China has learnt a lot about product development from its role as the ‘world’s factory.’ This, combined with a strong focus on STEM in education, heavy investments in R&D, and a culture of risk-taking and failing fast, has led to an increasing number of innovations coming from the Middle Kingdom.

On many fronts, China has been leading innovations for online consumer applications for some years, with the Facebooks, Amazons and Apples of the world often replicating ideas from China.

Not all of China’s innovations aren’t quite as sexy as the all-encompassing WeChat, live streaming innovations or facial recognition-enabled smart shopping, but they do address challenges that both China and the wider world face. China’s shrinking population and increasingly expensive workforce have seen an increase of robots in retail and dining, warehouses and even robot earthworms to explore engine pipes. In the agricultural sector, Chinese innovations are set to increase following the release of the first technology roadmap for intelligent agricultural machinery. It is also showing early signs of focusing on more GM farming as it strives for greater self-sufficiency in feeding a nation wanting more calories each year.

Some of the most interesting innovations coming out of China are areas which are not traditionally associated with the country. A good example is the auto industry. Even in its home market, Chinese car brands have largely been considered inferior and unable to charge a fraction of the premium that foreign badges command. Although domestic brands are growing faster, foreign brands still account for the largest share of the market.

Whilst China is being beaten in combustion engines, it is leading in EVs. The government was quick to identify this as a significant future opportunity and doubled down on its support and subsidies. By 2018, there were already 487 EV makers in China. Competition breeds innovation, and that is what we have seen, with EVs as cheap as $4,500, and talk of flying cars within a couple of years.

Globally, increasing environmental awareness and soaring fuel prices have seen consumer interest in EVs reach a tipping point. Although America can lay claim to the high profile Tesla brand, and legacy auto giants in the US, Europe, Japan and South Korea are also investing heavily in the EV wave, backing the EV horse early has paid off for China. China produces more than half of the world’s EVs and dominates in supporting industries such as batteries and cell components.

Although EV innovations in China may not appear relevant to a lot of consumer categories, they are symbolic of China innovating under the radar, which will leave few brands and categories untouched.

For brands, China’s growing innovation presents both opportunities and threats. Innovative Chinese companies present partnership opportunities for foreign brands, both within China and outside. China’s innovations are also creating opportunities for new and enhanced channels for marketing, sales and data collection. The innovations are creating new behaviours, habits and subcultures, which in themselves present possibilities. Like any dynamic market, the opportunities will increase for those that stay ahead of the game in innovations and trends. 

Get the latest insights on China’s consumers with CBBC’s China Consumer 2022 flagship event which will take place in London as well as online on 28^th and 30^th June. Learn more and register here.

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Over the years, the Design Intelligence Award has rapidly developed into one of the world’s most prestigious award programmes. Celebrating global design, entrepreneurship and business success, it represents an opportunity for UK entrepreneurs to access global decision-makers, investors and commissioners, build their reputation internationally, and grab a share of a £600,000 (RMB 5,000,000) award fund.

DIA has a strong trade and commercialisation focus, and its Industrial Transformation Service provides support for project landing, investment, entrepreneurship guidance, design refinement, marketing promotion and sci-tech transformation to accelerate market expansion. The DIA Trade and Business Portal helps applicants evaluate the potential of products or services, offering guidance on how to grow business in China. 

DIA recognises effort, dedication and innovation in four categories – spanning Cultural Innovation, Life Wisdom, Industrial Equipment and Digital Economy – designed to appeal to both established businesses with products new to the market and early-stage innovators with prototypes capable of being brought to market. The theme of DIA 2022 focuses on ‘Design Collaboration’,  hoping to bring together designers around the world to explore collaboration and sustainability in the post-Covid era through design.

UK applicants are serial winners at the DIA, receiving Gold and Silver awards in previous years. In 2021, Lancaster-based O-Innovations received one of the two Future Talents awards (worth RMB 80,000) for the O-Wind, the world’s first wind turbine that can harness both vertical and horizontal winds to generate clean electricity with a unique bladeless design that allows it to fit safely into dense urban environments.

At DIA 2021, UK companies were prominent among the Honourable Mentions too, including Shifa Technologies’ ShiVent, a simple, low-cost, non-electric and oxygen-efficient non-invasive ventilator created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic; and London-based material technology company Petit Pli, which has created a sustainable material that ‘grows’ as children grow, reducing the need to buy new clothes.

DIA is free to enter and you will gain invaluable exposure to supply chains, investors, commissioners, and other like-minded professionals. Plus, it’s super easy to enter, with just an online form to fill in.

Click here to apply for the 2022 Design Intelligence Award — the entry deadline is 8 July

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“Mr Science” has made many cameo appearances in the Party’s presentation of the birth of modern China. Now he is set to get his own show. First recruited by the May Fourth movement students of the early 20th century, “Mr Science” has inspired generations of Chinese scientists to push the boundaries in the pursuit of national greatness. Progress personified, President Xi appears keen to resuscitate him — science and technology has become one of his foremost ‘national projects.’ And President Xi is willing to spend. Forget the multibillion-dollar budget of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Chinese Communist Party is about to unleash a super-charged legislative agenda intended to see “Mr Science” turn the stuff of dreams into China’s every day. 

Enter the Science and Technological Progress Law (SPTL). The government hopes that its impact on society will be the same: to inspire China to look to infinity and beyond (to quote Buzz Lightyear). At 117 articles long, it is a treatise on adopting a top-down approach to fostering individual innovation. Concerningly for British businesses, the SPTL also contains several clauses that could see foreign firms excluded from public procurement programmes or their innovations commandeered by the Chinese Communist Party.

What is the Science and Technological Progress Law?

China’s leadership has long distinguished itself through its technocratic tendencies, while Western cabinets continue to more commonly consist of classicists rather than chemists. That alone goes a long way to explaining why the country is a leader in both the pursuit of a digital currency and the rollout of 5G technologies, and also now ranks first in terms of the number of filed patents. Take President Xi, for example – he is a chemical engineer and a scholar of Marxist theory by formal training, well versed in the affairs of the Soviet Union, whose government came to typify technocracy. He is far from alone in the top tiers of the Party in that regard. Now his government wants to “promote science and technology as the primary productive force… to support and lead economic and social development and build a modern socialist country in an all-around way.”

The SPTL is not a new law; the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has passed revisions to legislation that came into force in 1993 before being revised once prior in 2007. That’s a point for the pedants, though, as CBBC has already heard from members that these changes have turned what used to be a benign piece of legislation that went largely unnoticed – given that the previous version existed as a piece of legislative advocacy rather than enforceable law — into a new non-market access barrier. Indeed, some provinces have reportedly interpreted the STPL as a new requirement to take a ‘China first’ approach to R&D funding and government procurement.

Highlights

The first thing to note is that the Chinese government has designed these amendments to emphasise the state’s role in innovation. President Xi’s approval of certain aspects of the Soviet Union’s approach to governance is well documented (as are his views on why it collapsed) – that the Party should be the determiner of technological progress, and that regulation falls firmly on the list of things to emulate. While the 2007 amendments emphasised more corporate engagement, this time around, lawmakers are putting in place a legal framework to boost state spending on “frontier technologies” such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

To that end, the NPC has written in Article 32 to the STPL: “For projects funded by the PRC government, the PRC government could use the resulting achievements with no compensation to the owner.” 

PRC legal pundits writing on the STPL have jumped on Article 32, chiefly because the “no compensation” clause can be triggered in the interests of “national security, national interest, and major social public unrest.” Everything under the sun can be linked to national security in China, from soil samples to basic chemicals that a quick Google search reveals can be bought on Amazon in the UK, and the prevalence with which officials will cite national security in China is only growing. As a result, going forward, British companies collaborating with Chinese partners on R&D may have to be careful about whether the project in question is PRC-funded, should they not wish their output to be used by the government for free.

After decades of entrepreneurs developing technologies and systems that seriously tested the state regulator’s ability to keep up, the STPL is about ensuring that the Communist Party of China is the one calling the shots in the country’s technological development

The revisions to the STPL also include a number of policies to encourage scientific research: 

• Article 41: Tax incentives – any R&D expenses incurred can be deducted from the tax bill
• Article 46: SOEs should up their game when it comes to R&D by pursuing more projects and by developing incentive systems and better ways of assessing their innovative capability
• Article 86: The state will increase the overall level of investment in science and technology
• Article 91: Preference to use products developed domestically in government procurement settings
• Article 92: Encourages IP lending (which is when a borrower receives funds secured on the value of their intellectual property) 

The remaining 101 Articles of the STPL offer little to write home about, predominantly stressing the need to carry various ‘spirits’ into Chinese R&D.

Causes for concern

Nevertheless, there remains plenty for companies to be concerned about. Article 42 is particularly eye catching, for it reads: “The state encourages enterprises to digest, absorb, re-innovate imported technologies.” This might be interpreted as a tacit endorsement of a return to the days when Chinese companies — particularly state-owned enterprises — were incentivised to pursue deals with foreign parties where the overseas firms would find themselves under pressure to transfer their technology in order to get the deal over the line. Then again, the STPL also includes several clauses on the need to continue improving China’s IP regime, so foreign firms will have to wait and see how Article 42 is applied in practice. 

Then there is Article 91, which seems to have PRC lawyers scratching their heads as to whether it is in accordance with World Trade Organisation rules and China’s obligations as a member: 

“Products that represent scientific and technological innovations produced by natural persons, legal persons, and unincorporated persons in China shall be purchased through government procurement under the condition that the indicators of function and quality can meet the needs of government procurement; if they are put on the market for the first time, government procurement shall take the lead in purchasing, and shall not be restricted on the grounds of commercial performance” 

With no further implementation guidance available at the time of writing, the best guess is that if the byproducts of R&D activities come into being within China — be it as the IP of a Chinese company or a foreign-invested entity — the Chinese government has an interest. Similar in intent to Article 32, this clause provides the government with unfettered access to the innovations that, particularly in the case of SOEs, one assumes the state will begin funding even more proactively than it does now. Expect further market distortions in China’s technology sectors if this is the case — how local governments interpret any subsequent guidance handed down in accompaniment to the STPL will be critical to whether Article 91 has a significant impact on industrial markets or not.

The CBBC view 

China’s scientists are to be put on a pedestal. While the Science and Technological Progress Law contains some worrying clauses for foreign businesses in China’s industrial markets, they are not the intended recipient. This legislation is about giving the government a legal basis to go big on tech. It is also about ensuring that the Communist Party of China is the one calling the shots in the country’s technological development, after decades of entrepreneurs developing technologies and systems that seriously tested the state regulator’s ability to keep up.

There are also the Party’s aspirations that further investment into the R&D activities of SOEs and universities will create more jobs, which it undoubtedly will — particularly for the hundreds of thousands of STEM graduates that leave university each year to enter an astoundingly competitive labour market. But China’s issues with relying on the SOEs to be the main source of the country’s ability to be innovative are well documented.

Science is being brought to the fore; the Party hopes to engineer the country’s achievements in science and technology into a source of national pride. Although China might have jumped the gun in its race to achieve technological supremacy, is the country ready to go it alone, as this legislation strongly suggests? Only time will tell.

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As China endeavours to shift from a low-end mass manufacturer to a high-end producer, the government has doubled down on encouraging targeted investments in R&D and technological innovation. The ongoing technology confrontation with the US is another factor at play, impacting a wide range of segments from access to chips and other key input technologies and products. This has resulted in increased government support for the technology sector as a strategic one and for which government support has increased.

This article summarises the major tax incentives to encourage technology innovation currently available in China and how they can help UK businesses.

High and new technology enterprises (HNTEs)

HNTE treatment, which reduces a qualified taxpayer’s applicable corporate income tax (CIT) rate from the standard 25% to 15%, is one of the core tax incentives encouraging innovation in China.

In addition to the lower CIT rate, starting from 1 January 2018 for qualified HTNEs, losses that occur five years prior to the year in which they become qualified and have not been made up can be carried forward to subsequent years to be made up. The maximum carry-forward period has also been increased to 10 years (usually only five years).

To qualify for HNTE status, a company must meet a range of criteria, including owning the intellectual property rights for the core technology of its main product or service, and having more than 10% of its total staff engaging in R&D.

Starting in 2021, certain companies in Beijing can qualify for HTNE status with lower qualifications or via simplified procedures. To be eligible, a company must be a production and research enterprise engaging in integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, biopharmaceuticals, or key materials, with a reported annual revenue of over RMB 20 million; be registered in Beijing and be in operation for over a year; and spend at least 50% of total R&D expenses within China.

Qualified companies are required to provide far fewer materials than usual to apply for HNTE status, which can be submitted online. The National HNTE Leading Team Office will approve the application soon after the it has undergone expert assessment and review by the HNTE accreditation authority. The public comment procedure is also exempted, meaning overall turnaround time is much shorter.

Technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (TSMEs)

TSMEs fall under the scope of SMEs that conduct technology-based activities and have scientific and technological personnel who are involved in R&D activities and obtain IP for creating high-tech products or services.

Unlike HNTEs, TSME status has special requirements on an enterprise’s number of total employees (no more than 500), annual sales revenue, and total assets (no more than RMB 200 million). On the other hand, while becoming an HNTE requires that the core technology of a company’s key products or services is specially encouraged by the state and the ratio of income from high-tech related operations against total income is not lower than 60% in the current period, TSMEs have no such requirements. In general, it is easier to apply for TSME status for smaller businesses.

Advanced technology service enterprises (ATSEs)

ATSE status is another core innovation tax policy to encourage the provision of information technology outsourcing (ITO), business process outsourcing (BPO), or knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services to overseas entities. To be qualified as an ATSE, an enterprise must fulfil a range of requirements, including more than 50% of its staff holding a college degree or above.

Originally launched in the Suzhou Industrial Park in 2016, the ATSE incentive was rolled out nationwide in 2017, reducing the corporate income tax rate for a qualified ATSE from the standard 25% to 15%, similar to HNTEs.

In addition, ATSEs are subject to zero VAT for the provision of certain offshore services, which means they can be exempted where a simple tax computation method is applicable, or they can use the tax exemption, credit, and refund method where a VAT general tax computation method is applicable.

Summary

Beyond the major innovation tax policies introduced above, there are other preferential policies designed to encourage the development of the tech sector, such as the tax incentives for the integrated circuit and software sector and faster refund of VAT incremental credit balance for advanced manufacturing taxpayers.

Businesses in China may find documentation requirements and application procedures tough going if they are not familiar with the established tax system and eligibility criteria for accessing supportive measures. It is recommended that potentially qualified enterprises carefully study the application requirements for each incentive and choose one or more best suited to their own situation. For example, ATSE status is more suitable for an enterprise that doesn’t own the local IP rights of the key technologies of its core products or services, since HNTE status has local IP requirements.

A version of this article was first published by China Briefing, which is produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm assists foreign investors throughout Asia from offices across the world. Readers may write to info@dezshira.com for more support.

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At the opening ceremony of International Biopharma Industry Week Shanghai on 11 October, CEO of AstraZeneca, Pascal Soriot, announced the inauguration of its newly-upgraded global R&D centre. As reported by Yicai Global, at the ceremony Soriot said that the new centre has introduced “state-of-the-art technologies and expanded our R&D team to reflect [its] increasing importance within our global network.” The centre will not only bring innovative new medicines to China, but will speed up R&D and clinical trials of new medicines for China and abroad.

Speaking at the same event, Dr He Jing, senior vice president and head of R&D China, said: “Our R&D pipeline in China currently has more than 120 projects under development, of which more than 85% are being developed simultaneously with our global pipeline… This year, we have established a translational medicine team and a digital and data innovation team, and the overall number of R&D personnel has increased by more than 20% year-on-year.”

Alongside the upgraded R&D centre, AstraZeneca has also launched the Shanghai International Life Science Innovation Campus (also known as the Shanghai iCampus), which aims to bring together academic and industry resources to help Chinese and international startups in the fields of Medical AI and digital therapy.

The inauguration of AstraZeneca’s R&D centre comes at a time when the Shanghai government is putting an emphasis to make the city a world-class hub for the biopharmaceutical industry. As China.org reported, in May 2021, the municipal government issued a three-year action plan aiming to boost the annual output of the biopharma industry to RMB 180 billion.

A couple of months later, the Central Committee and the State Council issued another set of guidelines supporting the high-level reform and opening up of the Pudong New Area in Shanghai, including corporate income tax reductions of 10% (down to 15% from a universal rate of 25%) for the first five years following business registration for companies in key industries like biopharma. The guidelines also give a boost to science and technology research, exempting research institutions from import duties on research equipment.

AstraZeneca first entered the Chinese market in 1993 and has since become the largest multinational pharmaceutical company in the country, with its headquarters in Shanghai and regional headquarters in cities including Beijing and Guangzhou. China is not only AstraZeneca’s second-largest market, accounting for USD 5.4 billion of sales in 2020, but also a key destination for its research and innovation. Since the 1990s, the company has invested more than USD 1 billion in R&D, and developed eight new medicines in cooperation with partners in China.

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When it comes to technology, Guangdong is known for designing, building and selling things. However, there is a step before all of that in the tech industry’s value chain, and it is a step in which the province has traditionally been lagging. Beijing and Shanghai have long had an edge in basic scientific research, given the prevalence of leading universities in both cities focused on exactly this.

Still, Guangdong is not lacking in academic spirit or ambition. There are a number of well-established innovation hubs in Guangdong, such as Guangzhou’s “Science City,” which is home to some of the world’s biggest R&D-focused corporate names, or Shenzhen’s Nanshan Science and Technology Park, which hosts some of China’s biggest tech brands. At the core of the Greater Bay Area master plan is the ambitious “10 hubs” plan to build China’s answer to Silicon Valley, known as the Science and Technology Innovation Corridor (STIC).

Yet it has also become clear that Guangdong needs to raise its game in basic research. That is why the regional master plan has placed so much emphasis on collaboration between Hong Kong’s elite universities and their Guangdong counterparts, as well as research institutes such as Hong Kong’s Advanced Science and Technology Research Institute. Guangdong being the dynamic province it is, however, there was always going to need to be more than one route to scientific achievement. As a result, four major clusters of scientific excellence have been receiving resources and attention from authorities not only at the local and provincial level, but also at the national level.

Two of these clusters are located in the tier one cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but not in established tech zones. In Guangzhou, a brand-new Science City is rising in the southernmost Nansha district, one of the province’s three national-level New Areas (the two others being Shenzhen’s Qianhai and Zhuhai’s Hengqin). In Shenzhen, the northerly Guangming area has been chosen for the next stage of the city’s scientific development.

The choice of Dongguan and Zhongshan for the two other Science Cities is perhaps more surprising. Both have grown over the past 20 years from rural backwaters into industrial powerhouses on the back of low-margin export-oriented manufacturing. Yet that is precisely why they were chosen for the next round of experiments in scientific progress: they have manufacturing bases that can be retooled for higher-technology outputs, and they have plenty of (cheaper) land available. In Dongguan, the Songshan Lake district has been the centre of scientific development, while in Zhongshan it has been the Cuiheng district.

Below, Greater Bay Insight gives a brief overview of each of these Science Cities.

The Nansha Free Trade Zone, Guangzhou, China

Guangzhou’s Nansha Science City

Nansha Science City was formally established in May 2021 when the city government signed a formal agreement for its establishment with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the national scientific think-tank and academic governing body.

Essentially, the Nansha Science City aims to accomplish three major goals: to build on existing technological infrastructure, to construct new platforms for fostering innovation, and work to attract “high-end innovative talent” from home and abroad. With an initial focus on advanced scientific research in data processing, life sciences and marine biology, it has already seen construction started on the Marine Science and Engineering Laboratory on 600 acres of land with a total investment of over RMB 8 billion (£889.5 million).

With an initial focus on advanced scientific research in data processing, life sciences and marine biology, Nansha has already seen construction started on the Marine Science and Engineering Laboratory on 600 acres of land

Nansha district itself – once a site of alluvial sand deposits at the mouth of the Pearl River – has big ambitions to become a regional finance and technology hub. Its status as a national-level New Area gives the district certain leeway and expedited approvals for innovative ideas. This has enabled it to build a tech park not far from massive ocean-going transport and logistics facilities at Nansha Port, and a new business district is currently under construction that has already attracted commitment from over 260,000 enterprises, with 79 large-scale headquarters planned for the area.

Driving its scientific ambitions is the city government’s enviable tie-up with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which has already set up no fewer than 44 national and provincial-level laboratories around the city.

At the core of Nansha Science City is the Pearl Science Park, which covers an area of 3.1 square kilometres and will feature five relocated projects and nine newly-established projects from CAS. It it scheduled to begin its first phase of construction this year and is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.

Among the CAS relocated projects are the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology currently located in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion and South China Botanical Garden’s research department in Tianhe district, and Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health in Huangpu district.

The Guangzhou college of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences – the public university under the direct leadership of CAS with capacity to accommodate 4,200 postgraduate students in Tianhe district and 1,800 in Huangpu district in its Guangzhou branch – is also expected to move to the Pearl Science Park.

Established by Shenyang Institute of Automation of CAS, a new project named Guangzhou Intelligent Unmanned System Research Institute, focusing on developing an underwater robotics system, was expected to start construction this September. It has been given the role of an R&D base for China’s intelligent unmanned deep ocean systems.

Shenzhen’s Guangming Science City

Unlike Nansha, Shenzhen’s Guangming Science City is still in its infancy. The plan was only approved in April, although the founding began in January. However, its mission is no less important: to become the “core engine” of the tech-driven city’s basic scientific research effort.

Once home to dense residential zones and seven state-run production bases for dairy products, Guangming will now be divided into three major scientific clusters covering 99 sq km of land. The first and most important is focused on producing top-level scientific equipment. The other two are centred on Sun Yat-Sen University’s Shenzhen campus and one that contains research institutions and technology transformation platforms.

Six scientific infrastructure projects are being built in the first stage, including a material genomics scientific device platform; a space gravitational wave detection ground simulation device; a synthetic biology research facility; brain analysis and meningeal facilities; space, environment, and material effects research facilities; and precision medical imaging facilities. Among these, the third and fourth are already under construction.

The area is expected to forge strong links with Hong Kong’s academic institutions in basic research, including the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, although no details have been disclosed so far regarding the form of cooperation.

Dongguan’s Neutron Science City

Construction on Dongguan Neutron Science City only began in March this year, but its most important components are already in operation after more than a decade of development: the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory and China Spallation Neutron Source. Both have made use of high-level support and resources from CAS as part of a strategic plan to turn Dongguan, once a low-cost manufacturing hub, into one of the top clusters for comprehensive material science research in China.

Neutron Science City covers a land area of 53.3 sq km and is building accommodation for universities, research enterprises and large enterprises to attract some 600 scientists from around the world to carry out scientific research in all disciplines.

One of only four science devices of its kind (the other three are in the UK, the US and Japan), the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) was formally established in 2011 by the Institute of High Energy Physics of CAS with an investment of RMB 2.3 billion (£256.1 million). Not far from the CSNS is the Songshan Lake Material Laboratory, jointly established in 2017 by the Dongguan government, as well as two CAS institutes with some RMB 12 billion (£1.3 billion) of planned investment on a 4.85 sq km land area. As of June 2021, the laboratory has 257 scientists working in it, including some from overseas.

Among the four newly-planned science city projects, Neutron Science City is the only one that is also part of the Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, the blueprint for China’s Silicon Valley within the overall masterplan of the Greater Bay Areas, which includes Songshan Lake as one of its “ten cores” in Guangdong.

Among the four newly-planned science city projects, Neutron Science City is the only one that is also part of the Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, the blueprint for China’s Silicon Valley within the overall masterplan of the Greater Bay Areas

Zhongshan’s Cuiheng Science City

Over on the western side of the Bay, Zhongshan’s Cuiheng Science City is smaller than the other three, covering just 18.27 sq km. However, it has big ambitions. Its development plan was unveiled in May based on a centre for “internationalisation and modernisation” that can accommodate up to 180,000 residents.

The planning of the area, released by the city government, didn’t include any specific names of the projects to be developed besides listing a few functional zones such as a technology and innovation zone, medical city, biotech park, science and education cooperation zone, and wetland zone. What is clear is the emphasis on fostering interaction with key regions across the Greater Bay Area, such as Qianhai, Airport New City and Ocean New City in Shenzhen, several of which are also part of the master plan for the Science and Technology Innovation Corridor in the Greater Bay Area.

Sitting at the end of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge-Tunnel project, the cross-bay connection due to be completed in 2024, the city is planning to position itself as a key node in the region’s traffic network. According to the plan, Cuiheng Science City will be within an hour’s reach of the region’s major air and rail hubs.

The plan has also listed a number of industry clusters, focusing on electronic information, smart manufacturing and biotechnology. No details regarding scientific research institutes have been specified.

Although these new science cities are being constructed separately, the intention to combine them into a powerhouse of scientific research for the technology-oriented Greater Bay Area is clear. Only time will tell whether they succeed in attracting the necessary talent, and combine their resources in a world-class competitive way.

This post originally appeared on our content partner Greater Bay Insight

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The results of China’s 2020 census showed that the population is ageing rapidly. There are now 264 million people over the age of 65 in China, accounting for 13.5% of the 1.4 billion population, an increase of 4.6% from the 2010 census. While the share of older people in the population is still lower than in neighbouring countries like Japan and South Korea, the pace of ageing in China is likely to continue to accelerate over the next two to three decades.

This problem is not unique to China, and it creates a growing challenge for governments, both in terms of how to maintain a sustainable working-age population and how to care for the growing number of older adults. In 2020, China’s Social Security Administration predicted that its pension fund could be depleted by as early as 2035 unless remedial measures were taken, and there is also a lack of nursing home provision, especially at the more affordable end of the spectrum. According to a 2019 China Daily article, only 3% of Shanghai’s elderly population lives in a nursing home, with 90% living at home. However, as the post-one child policy generations mature, there are fewer family members available to look after older people at home.

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, recently announced that it is recruiting a group of people over the age of 60 to advise on how to make its app more accessible and appealing to older people

Companies from a wide range of sectors are coming up with hardware and software solutions to address these problems. The Healthy Ageing Challenge, one of UK Research and Innovation organisation’s projects, is investing up to £98 million in healthy ageing, and has identified seven themes that offer the greatest potential to stimulate innovation in the pursuit of longer, healthier lives:

• Sustaining physical activity
• Maintaining health at work
• Designing for age-friendly homes
• Managing the common complaints of ageing
• Living well with cognitive impairment
• Supporting social connections
• Creating healthy and active places.

In many cases, the best innovations start much earlier than retirement age. For Helen Crampin, the Investment and Technology Innovation Lead at Healthy Ageing, the key is trying to create a long-term sea change rather than short term fixes. “At the centre of what we’re trying to do is help people age better, so not even have to go to hospital or into social care… We don’t just aim our products at the elderly, we’re aiming our products at [people in their] 40s and 50s, making people think about the way they’re living,” she said.

As a country that has only started to combat its ageing population more recently, China has a leg up in terms of designing products for older users from the ground up. Another area where UK businesses can learn from China is digital inclusion. The proportion of internet users in China aged 50 or above increased from 17% in March 2020 to 27% by the end of 2020, and many older people are using smartphones for everything from mobile payment to entertainment, particularly in urban areas. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, recently announced that it is recruiting a group of people over the age of 60 to advise on how to make its app more accessible and appealing to older people.

As a judge in this year’s Design Intelligence Awards (DIA), Crampin believes that design plays an indispensable role in creating products and services that older people can and will actually use. “Design should come at the stage of ideation… you should be thinking about your end-user when the idea is sparked,” she says. In actuality, many software platforms that have a use elsewhere are being retroactively applied to ageing, “but the design for ageing hasn’t happened until that product is nearly fully formed.”

Offering advice to this year’s DIA applicants,  Crampin draws on her experience working on investor partnerships as part of the Healthy Ageing Challenge. Many social enterprises find it hard to access early-stage funding because commercial investors want to see a two to three-year exit strategy, which is not always possible for solutions that are targeting long-term change. She suggests that companies applying to the DIA that face this issue consider both the short and long-term strategies for their products, as well as how to highlight other attractive aspects of their company, such as their founder and leadership team.   

Visit this link to apply for the Design Intelligence Awards — the entry deadline for UK applicants is 9 July

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In 2020, UK applicants to the DIA were awarded more funding than Japan, India and Germany combined. UK innovators topped the international league tables outside China, with 18 finalists – and 20% of UK applicants – selected as finalists from a field of 7,000 applications.

Read on to find out more about two previous award winners that showcase the broad spectrum of design and innovation that has the potential to succeed in the DIA (and scroll down for how to enter).

Hero Arm, 2019 Gold Award (£115k)

Created by Open Bionics, Hero Arm is the world’s first 3D-printed bionic hand that offers market-leading functionality at a fraction of the cost of its nearest competitor.

Finally, they also recommend bringing a product user or advocate to the awards pitch, as seeing the tech in action makes it more meaningful, especially with a life-changing product like a bionic limb.

Finally, they also recommend bringing a product user or advocate to the awards pitch, as seeing the tech in action makes it more meaningful, especially with a life-changing product like a bionic limb.

Tampliner, 2020 Silver Award (£25k)

Visit this link to apply for the Design Intelligence Awards — the entry deadline for UK applicants is 9 July

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Stephen L. Morgan is Professor of Chinese Economic History at the University of Nottingham and Associate Provost for Planning at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China. He was seconded to the university’s Ningbo campus until last year. After visiting China in 1981 as a journalist, he worked as a foreign correspondent and newspaper editor in Australia, China and Hong Kong before moving into academia and teaching at the University of Melbourne.

His new book ‘The Chinese Economy’ (Columbia University Press) looks at 40 years of Reform and Opening Up and 40 years of political leadership in China, with a focus on China’s efforts to ensure it is the first developing economy to avoid the “middle-income trap”. The book looks back over China’s recent economic decision-making to see how the economy got where it is today, and then fast forwards to the challenges and stresses it faces in the immediate future.

Paul French caught up with Stephen Morgan to ask him his views on China’s economy today and what the next few years might yield.

You show clearly that China has become ‘an upper-middle-income economy.’ Could you explain briefly how that happened and what that means to people and businesses in terms of spending power and consumption?

China’s great transformation from a very poor country in the 1970s to an upper middle-income one in the 2020s was the product of recurring structural change. First, rural reform unleashed peasant market-based incentives, raised output and incomes, and set the stage for market-oriented reforms of the moribund urban state-run economy. Second, China re-joined the world economy, welcoming foreign direct investment (FDI) and multinational enterprises (MNEs). This coincided with the expansion of MNE production networks, which we now call global value chains. Millions of workers left agriculture for jobs in factories and services. That accelerated after China joined the WTO in 2001, which forged a new urban middle class.

Nothing demonstrates this better than private car ownership, which increased from 3.7 million vehicles in 2000 to 207.1 million in 2019. Despite talk of consumption-led growth, government policies promote state investment. That needs to change if China’s debt, about 280% of GDP, is not to balloon further. Increased household consumption will raise demand for products and services. Without such changes, China’s growth might slump to reign in debt and Chinese consumer spending power will fall dramatically. That won’t be good for domestic or international firms. 

Stephen Morgan in China in 1981

You chart the issues around the sustainability of China’s economic modernisation – pollution, effluent-filled waterways, contaminated farmland. Many of these have arguably been tackled, so what are the sustainability threats in 2021?

The ‘airpocalypse’ that shrouded Chinese cities in poisonous smog in the winters of 2012 and 2013 might have been largely controlled, but China still faces big environmental challenges.

Economic growth means increased energy use and more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. China is an energy giant and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. It is the largest producer and user of coal, the largest importer of oil, and the largest producer of ‘clean’ energy (wind, solar and hydropower generation). On a per-capita basis, China consumed 2.4 tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE) in 2018 – about one-third the level of the US, half that of Russia, two-thirds that of Germany and 81% of the UK. But it is hugely inefficient, burning 0.3 TOE for each $1000 of GDP, which was 2.5 times the US, 3.5 times the EU and 4.1 times Japan.

The problem is that rich countries are high energy users: without a shift in energy type and reduced emissions, as middle-income economies like China become richer, they will use more energy, which will worsen climate change. Whatever the consequences for the world, those for China will be devastating. A one-metre rise in sea level will inundate parts of the lower Yangzi, for example, rendering the economic powerhouses of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo uninhabitable. The economic loss and dislocation and the vast migrations of people is a crisis neither China nor the world can allow.

You note that innovation is absolutely key to addressing many of the challenges China faces. What are the challenges when trying to foster greater innovation?

The recent 2020 census contains a part answer. It reports the average years of schooling for those aged 15 years or more was 9.9 years, up from 9.1 years in 2010. In comparative terms, that means most of China’s workers are high school dropouts. Today’s level is a bit below Japan and the EU in 1970, and well below the USA.

A one-metre rise in sea level will inundate parts of the lower Yangzi, for example, rendering the economic powerhouses of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo uninhabitable

Despite the huge investment in higher education – China graduates more engineers, scientists and PhDs than any other country – the workforce on average is not equipped with the higher-order capabilities required for a modern knowledge economy. Much as China’s government pours money into R&D, which deliver some successes and quite a few failures too, the educational weaknesses in the workforce will hinder the forging of an innovative economy.

China has been very successful at incremental and process innovation and less at novel innovation. The latter relies as much on serendipity and entrepreneurialism as it does on state initiatives. But there needs to be the freedom to fail and to criticise bad outcomes. In my view, constraints on contrarian thinking combined with insufficient general education and heavy-handed government mandates will hinder China in fostering innovation.

What is the status of urbanisation, which was such a key factor in modernising the economy? Have we reached the end of that process or will cities be ever-enlarging?

Between 1978 and 2020, urbanisation increased from 18% of the population to about 62%. More than 800 million people live in Chinese cities. China plans to move another 200 million into cities in the next 15-20 years, which will make it a country of more than one billion city dwellers. Already vast areas of China are joined into urban conurbations, such as the lower Yangzi delta with Shanghai at its apex. A web of highways and fast trains join Nanjing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo into an economic powerhouse whose regional GDP is more than the combined GDP of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the Pearl River Delta conurbations.

There is still much potential in urban growth. An important challenge, though, is to make cities sustainable. Middle class Chinese have abandoned their bikes for cars, and new suburbs are almost American in their design, with car-friendly boulevards and the ensuing congestion, too. Although many cities boast modern transit systems, the challenge is the last mile between stations and home or office. The bike-sharing apps that took off in China in the mid-2010s was an attempt to try to solve this dilemma.

China’s rural economy has changed massively, with new methods of agriculture, crop diversification and a large number of rural dwellers leaving the countryside. What is the future of agriculture in China?

That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure I have an answer. If you go into a village near the major cities of East China, like Ningbo where I lived until late 2020, you will barely see a man or woman of working age. The village is full of old folks and a few pre-school children. The fields are often not tended, or if they are, they are contracted out. Official statistics say the primary sector still accounts for about 7% of GDP and employs about 25% of the workforce. Probably less than half that number still work on farms and mostly in central and western regions where there are fewer non-farm jobs. 

The government is eager to retain a degree of food security, especially in grain, but few people want to farm and even fewer in low-value cereal cropping. A major hindrance to the modernisation of farming is the household registration (hukou) system that prevents rural people from settling permanently in cities. They hang onto their land-use rights in the village as insurance should they be expelled from the city, and that inhibits the consolidation of plots and the adoption of more efficient farming.

It’s hard to work out if we’re still at the early stages of modernisation or whether the trend and impetus have peaked. Obviously, there are still many things to do, to improve – what would your wish list of economic change in China be for the next 5-10 years?

Any humane observer of China would wish to see China continue to develop and its people share in a higher standard of living. Over the past 40 years, pundits have mostly got China wrong: who in 1980 would have imagined the growth and change to come, let alone the Communist Party overseeing a market-led transformation of Chinese socialism?

The challenge for economic change is not economic but political. To enable innovation to grow the economy, tackle the environment and improve the standard of living, China will need to reform the state sector. Instead, state Goliaths are strengthened and the private sector reigned in. Enforcement of competition laws recently against Alibaba, Tencent, Meituan and others, which was long overdue, is not just about improving the market, but about social control and disciplining Big Tech and the many private sector billionaires whose wealth and charisma, such as that of Jack Ma, potentially could become an independent opposition to the party. At the end of the day, party political survival will trump good economic policy, as it does even in liberal democracies when vested interests get the ear of a PM or President.

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