The Promethean Pursuit in the Us-China Competition for Global Technological Leadership

After a century of humiliation, a century of hard work in reconstructing and modernizing an extremely poor and backward country, with a huge population and an ancient civilization, when New China was founded in October 1949. After eradicating absolute/extreme poverty in 2020, the Chinese nation of 1.4 billion has advanced further on the path to common prosperity by mid-21st century. China will complete its Four Modernizations of agriculture, industry, defense, science & technology (S&T) by 2050. A world-class military will also then protect the country's sovereignty and integrity as well as safeguard national interests. Together with construction of ecological civilization to host and support harmonious co-existence between humanity and nature, a fully restored and rejuvenated Beautiful China will embrace the whole world with open arms in the spirit of international friendship and goodwill, and cooperate to co-develop in peace for the common good as well as a shared future for all nations. At the vanguard of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, China will further drive its own dramatic transformation at the heart of convergence of emerging and disruptive technologies ignited and sustained by AI, big data, biotechnology, etc. in the new era. In the latest round of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), China has been innovating and leading in the intelligentization of military forces. Some observers have viewed the visionary technological move as a stratagem to "capture the decisive advantage" in global geopolitical competition. Combining three volumes on China's present and future developments, CHINA FUTURE TRILOGY comprises: (1) CHINA IN 2030, highlighting the rise to the world's economic leadership and acceleration of military modernization; (2) CHINA TOWARDS 2035 on milestones which feature basic completion of agricultural, economic and military modernizations as well as building a Beautiful China in "a further 15 years of hard work" (to quote President Xi Jinping) from 2020 to 2035; and (3) CHINA VISION 2050, on the way to the great goal of complete and comprehensive national development, modernization and rejuvenation. The story of New China is indeed an extraordinary epic of miraculous national transformation in the most truly revolutionary period in history.