In Wuhan, quarantine is lifted - and it takes place solemnly, like a national holiday, like a victory day. Despite the huge blow to the Chinese economy and the collapse of the stock market, it is likely that China will recover from the tremendous damage caused by the epidemic.
90% of cases in China recovered. The authorities invested $ 26 billion in the resuscitation of the Chinese economy over the past month, according to the Committee on Reforms and Planning of the PRC.
But perhaps the most important thing that has eluded the eyes of the majority is that during these three months of fighting the epidemic, China has made a huge leap into the digital future, which the rest of the world can only dream of.
Surprisingly, this digital revolution has come true despite (or perhaps thanks to) the successfully defeated epidemic of coronavirus. In any case, the Chinese system of power passed the most serious test of survival - and passed it very successfully, demonstrating to the world the success of its authoritarian model and its readiness for a new future.
During the epidemic, China's health authorities have put robots and drones at the forefront to control the spread of the virus and avoid new infections among humans. Autonomous robotic systems scan people for signs of infection, measure temperature, deliver medicines and treat surfaces with a disinfectant.
Such scenes are hard to imagine in Italy, the Russian province or in the French Provence.
China's technology market is growing - in 2019, contracts grew by 17.5% with a total transaction volume of approximately $ 318.6 billion per year (according to the Ministry of Science and Technology of the PRC). It is logical to assume that after the live testing of Chinese technology products during the fight against the epidemic, sales in this market sector in 2020 and 2021 will grow significantly.
According to recent March data, for the first time, Google Waymo unmanned American cars were inferior in terms of the distance they traveled by one mile to the Chinese Baidu Apollo. The top five are two more Chinese startups: AutoX and Pony.ai (in which Toyota, for example, invested $ 400 million to enter the Chinese market).
The epidemic in the Middle Kingdom has created a real boom in digital services. For the first time in history, 170 million Chinese schoolchildren and students are now studying online, and online tutoring services are generating multimillion-dollar profits. Unsuccessful attempts to transfer education online have been made in China before, but it is known that there is nothing stronger than a human habit. And now: three months of the epidemic - and digitalization in China occurred at lightning speed.
Now the PRC will accelerate the training of graduate students in the field of artificial intelligence, increasing the recruitment for relevant programs, reports the Ministry of Education.
During quarantine, China conducted the largest online party testing, opening the door to the future of humanity. For example, the Douyin platform (the Chinese analog of TikTok) invited to the “cloud party” at the “cloud rave” of the Beijing club SIR.TEEN, in which more than 2.3 million people took part! 100 thousand spectators joined the party in the first half hour. Chinese club TAXX for 71 thousand live views earned $ 104 thousand tip from the "guests" of the audience, showing that such virtual events can bring serious income.
At this very time, the Beijing municipal government announced a three-year plan to promote innovation and development of industries related to the Beidou navigation satellite system - during the crisis, it also received a brilliant run-in in reality.
In short, Beidou is another Chinese digital revolution.
Or part of a single Chinese digital breakthrough into "new heaven" - one of the terms denoting a new economy.
The new satellite navigation system entered the launch phase on March 9, 2020. On March 3, the 54th satellite of China was deployed in geostationary orbit. Takeoff took place in the launch center of Xichang in southwest China.
Residents of nearby areas were warned due to the risk of a fall, but everything went well. The system works thanks to blockchain and artificial intelligence, and cryptography processes the collected data. By May, the platform should enter the market. It will be useful for public safety, energy management, fishing, transport, smart cities and, of course, for the military. She is a growing competitor to GPS and GLONASS.
“Even when the book of human history is over, Beidou will not miss a second” - this is the slogan of the Beidou system, which marked the beginning of a new era in the ability to provide navigation services outside of China for its strategic partners included in the “One Belt - One Way” system ( BRI).
The Beidou-3 system uses high-precision cesium and hydrogen atomic clocks. It is equipped with high-quality surface acoustic wave filters, zinc-silver battery packs, electrical connectors, relays, crystal components and fasteners, which makes the system reliable in harsh space conditions (according to the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation CASC).
Users in China will receive information in a matter of seconds, as the positioning signal can be transmitted and processed within five seconds thanks to the country's 2,200 satellite stations, says CASC. (Hello, the boom of affordable unmanned vehicles and delivery drones!)
“We are focused on the constant development of new ways of applying and new forms of business for the Beidou system, as well as for introducing it into the new economy,” says its creator Young Changfeng.
The new economy is not just words. This is Chinese reality. Beijing seems finally ready to offer the world alternative financial networks.
People's Bank of China is almost ready to launch the digital renminbi, which will be the first official virtual currency in the world.
People's Bank of China conducted the first stage of introducing the digital renminbi in November 2019, choosing three regions for testing: Shenzhen, Hebei, Zhejiang. These three regions with a total population of 261.5 million people - the population of Japan and Russia combined. Testing was successful.
For Xi Jinping, the long-awaited launch of a digital coin is a strengthening of the yuan (i.e. China) on a planetary scale, says Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at the Nomura Institute (Japan’s largest private consulting company).
Has the epidemic thwarted the global plans of the Chinese leadership?
“The People’s Bank of China is delaying the launch of the digital renminbi, scheduled for the first quarter of 2020,” some Chinese media reported. Others believe that the launch can go according to plan, because the Central Bank has everything it needs.
Former President of the People’s Bank of China Lihui Li said that, on the contrary, coronavirus can accelerate the launch of the digital renminbi.
One of the main routes of transmission of coronavirus is through the surfaces of objects. That is, through cash (the first cases in Wuhan were fish market traders who used cash).
The epidemic, which claimed so many lives, accustomed people to wear masks, latex gloves and go into self-isolation and digital reality, will allow China to make a quick transition from cash to digital money - just as it happened with education.
Before putting the final touch to the portrait of the Chinese digital revolution, let us turn to the main, perhaps, China company. Huawei is the world's largest provider of telecommunications equipment, which by the end of 2018 occupied a third of the global market for 2G, 3G, 4G infrastructure, ahead of its competitors - the Finnish Nokia and the Swedish Ericsson. It is with Huawei that the United States is fighting with might and main, trying to prevent China's world leadership in telecommunications.
South Korea, the Philippines already use 5G, the UK, Russia, India, Bahrain, Thailand and Malaysia approved the deployment, Brazil and Italy are almost agreed, negotiations are not over, debates about the deployment of Huawei are in Canada, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and New Zealand . Forbidden - in the USA, Australia, Japan.
Huawei is a pioneer of 5G implementation through which the world revolution, including financial, will be carried out. Fifth generation networks will increase the speed of mobile data connections several times, providing fast communication and accelerating the development of the “Internet of things”. The political outcome of the epidemic for China lies in the fact that it is he who seizes the US and European Union leadership positions in the fight against the virus. In mid-March, the wide-body Airbus A350-900 flew out of Shanghai and landed in Rome with 31 tons of cargo and nine of the best Chinese epidemiologists. Two previous teams were sent to Iraq and Iran.
While the United States has eliminated itself, and Europe, with the wildest mortality rate, has shown complete paralysis of will, unwillingness to meet the challenges of today, a slaughtered healthcare system (only Germany seems to be the only country capable of answering the challenge), China is spreading its influence on the Eurasian continent.
Someone can sarcastically notice that eating bats, rats, snakes is not combined with planetary leadership in the digital industry. The answer to this is: the outbreak of coronavirus allowed the Chinese authorities to ban the consumption of wild animals. That is, to break the oldest national tradition. This decision was made by the committee of the All-China Assembly of People's Representatives (parliament) at the end of February 2020. Now China is fully prepared to launch into a new technological heaven.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.