Reflections on China’s progress, global cooperation, and future-focused ambitions
As the United States turns inward under a renewed wave of right-wing isolationism, the rest of the world is being forced to reassess long-held assumptions. One of the most consequential reassessments concerns China. Long framed primarily through lenses of suspicion, rivalry, or threat, China today presents a far more complex and, in many respects, constructive global posture than Western narratives often allow.
This is not an argument for overlooking China’s shortcomings. It is an argument for seeing the full picture and acknowledging progress where it exists.
Climate Change
Unlike much of the current Western political right, China treats climate change as an existential problem rather than an ideological inconvenience. That framing matters. It explains why China has moved aggressively on renewable energy, grid modernization, high-speed rail, and large-scale electrification.
That seriousness extends into everyday governance. Fuel purchases require a Chinese national ID, directly linking consumption to accountability and monitoring. Such a policy would be politically untenable in the US, yet it reflects a governing philosophy that prioritizes systemic outcomes over individual convenience.
China remains a major emitter, but it is also building the infrastructure that makes deep decarbonization possible at a pace few democracies can match.
Conservation
China’s conservation efforts, particularly around the giant panda, are often dismissed as soft-power theater. That dismissal misses the structural shift underway. China now operates under a formal National Strategy for Conservation, elevating wildlife protection from discretionary policy to a core function of the state. This includes expanded habitat protection, stricter enforcement against poaching, and steadily increasing bans on the consumption of wild animals.
The panda recovery program remains the most visible success, but it is no longer the exception. Conservation planning has evolved from species-by-species rescue to ecosystem-level management, with biodiversity corridors, protected landscapes, and long-term monitoring embedded into national policy.
This approach is reinforced by the Beautiful China initiative, which explicitly promotes biodiversity as a mainstream societal value rather than a niche environmental concern. Conservation is framed alongside public health, economic resilience, and quality of life, making it part of everyday governance rather than an activist sidebar.
By contrast, conservation in the United States remains fragmented across federal, state, and local authorities, frequently vulnerable to political reversal and legal challenge. Wildlife protection and biodiversity policy are often treated as partisan issues, subject to funding cuts, regulatory rollbacks, or denial of ecological urgency. The difference is less about values than structure: China treats conservation as long-term national infrastructure, while the US continues to treat it as a policy debate that must be re-won every election cycle.
Diplomacy Over Expansion
China’s preferred mode of global engagement today is economic and diplomatic rather than military. Trade partnerships, infrastructure financing, manufacturing collaboration, and technology exchange form the backbone of its international strategy.
This approach is increasingly reflected in tangible outcomes. In January 2026, China and Canada reached a landmark agreement easing tariffs and expanding visa access, signaling a thaw driven by mutual economic benefit rather than ideology. For many countries across Africa, Asia, and South America, Chinese partnerships are viewed not as ideological alignment but as mutualistic opportunity.
Suspicion has not disappeared, nor should it. But it is increasingly balanced by pragmatism.
The EV Revolution
No domain better illustrates China’s current position than electric vehicles. China did not merely adopt EVs. It built an end-to-end ecosystem encompassing batteries, supply chains, manufacturing, charging infrastructure, and consumer adoption at scale.
The Geely Xingyuan is now the top-selling battery electric vehicle in China, and BYD has surpassed Tesla as the world’s leading EV brand by sales. This shift reflects years of industrial policy, relentless iteration, and a domestic market willing to move quickly.
Even regulations that appear blunt by Western standards reinforce this momentum. In many cities, motorbikes older than 13 years are banned outright, accelerating fleet turnover and reducing emissions. The policy is inelegant, but effective.
Open Technology is Strategic
The open-sourcing of advanced AI systems such as DeepSeek marks another inflection point. It signals confidence, technical maturity, and a willingness to participate in global innovation ecosystems rather than operate entirely behind closed doors.
This is not altruism. It is strategic. Yet it also contributes to shared progress by enabling researchers and developers worldwide to build upon, critique, and improve cutting-edge work.
Remaining Friction
Acknowledging China’s strengths does not require ignoring its unresolved tensions. Bureaucratic processes can feel opaque or arbitrary. Daily life is shaped by rules that many in liberal democracies would consider excessive, from ID-linked fuel purchases to appearance regulations.
In some provinces, personal appearance is regulated, including restrictions on long beards, reflecting a broader willingness to enforce collective norms in pursuit of social objectives. Whether one agrees with such measures or not, they reveal a governing model prepared to prioritize systemic outcomes over individual preference.
Limits on speech, media, and individual freedoms remain the hardest gap to bridge for Western observers, both culturally and philosophically.
These issues are real, and they matter.
Looking Forward
I’ll admit there’s a quiet sense of envy in watching this unfold. Not of China itself, but of the clarity of purpose it brings to solving the problems of the future. From climate to infrastructure to technology, there is a sense of direction and momentum that feels increasingly absent in the United States. Here, we seem trapped in cycles of isolationism, science denial, and perpetual internal conflict that borders on dysfunction.
My loyalty is firmly with the US. It’s my home, my stake, and the country whose success I want most. But I wish we would once again look forward with the confidence and ambition that once defined us, guided by evidence, long-term thinking, and a shared belief that the future is something to build rather than fear. If there is anything to take from China’s rise, it is not a model to copy wholesale, but a reminder of what purposeful national focus can achieve when a society decides, collectively, to move forward.
Attie Heunis's Journey 