Beijing is recasting farm resilience as a capacity task. Grain output still sets the floor. The harder test is whether farmland, water, labour, local services, storage, logistics and markets can hold up when shocks hit.
Clinical trials tell you whether a drug works in ideal conditions. Real-world data (RWD) tells you whether it works on actual patients over time, and Beijing has decided it needs the second kind of evidence, and is building the infrastructure to collect it at scale. Since 2013, RWD has expanded beyond the handful of pilot zones used to fast-track drug registration.
Since 2021, the low-altitude economy, with drones as one of its core platforms, has been steadily elevated into a nationally championed strategic industry. Operating civilian drones is, at the same time, ever more strictly regulated. The 2024 'Interim regulations on the flight management of unmanned aircraft', set up real-name registration, operator certification, mandatory liability insurance and flight approval.
Free Trade Zone (FTZ) offshore bonds, nicknamed ‘pearl bonds’ in their first incarnation, are bonds with a twist: issued inside the zone, registered and cleared by PRC institutions, yet governed by international rules and ringfenced from the domestic financial system. In law and in function they behave like bonds issued abroad; in geography they stay grounded in Shanghai.