China’s next Silk Road is not concrete but code. By shaping global standards in 6G, digital payments and satellite connectivity, Beijing is embedding sovereignty at the protocol level creating power that is harder to sanction, harder to unwind, and already in place before crises erupt.
Power no longer flows from persuasion or values alone. In 2025, leverage sits in chokepoints: energy routes, chip supply chains, payment rails, shipping corridors, platforms, and custody systems. States that control bottlenecks can still force outcomes. States that cannot are left issuing statements while power moves elsewhere
Xinhua’s space yearender reads like a science roundup, but it is really a capability statement. Space is the cleanest theatre for showing state capacity because reality does not accept spin. The signal is industrial sovereignty: build, test, fail, fix, repeat. Reusable rockets and deep space missions are not romance. They are proof of institutions that can plan beyond the next cycle
Western headlines claim China is bypassing chip export controls. A close reading of Chinese and Taiwanese sources tells a different story: slow progress, rising costs, and no proven evidence of illicit upgrades. This analysis separates verifiable fact from allegation and explains what China’s DUV based strategy actually achieves.
Trillions in market value and hundreds of billions in infrastructure spending rest on one assumption: scarcity. China’s open model push is testing whether that assumption can survive.
Donald Trump has reopened the door for Nvidia’s H200 sales to approved customers in China. Beijing’s response is not to celebrate but to ration access, shield Huawei and deepen its own AI hardware stack. This article follows on from our investigation into offshore Chinese model training and explains how both Washington and Beijing now run export style controls on the same chip.