Author: Arindam Goswami

China recently unveiled a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship. While the addition of this capacity takes it closer towards nuclear powered aircraft carriers, which could help cement its ambition for a world-class, blue-water navy, what is astonishing is China’s underlying science and technology (S&T) ecosystem – from quantum computing to AI, biotechnology to renewable energy – which demonstrates an efficiency and strategic alignment that few countries have been able to replicate. It shows the importance of what Jeffrey Ding in his book, “Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition”, calls diffusion of…