Making headlines at the 2024 Rio G20 Summit, Xi Jinping pledged to reshape global agri-trade. He committed to boosting PRC imports from developing countries to over US$8 trillion by 2030. This aspirational shift, then amplified in 2025 by the tsunami of US tariffs under Trump 2.0, signalled Beijing’s intent to diversify supply and reposition PRC agri-trade ties with the Global South.
The PRC elderly care sector faces dual challenges: a shortage of care workers and constantly rising costs. Mass production of humanoid robots by 2025 was urged by MIIT in 2023. Many local governments earmarked funds for related R&D.
Successive cohorts of PRC university graduates passed 10 million for the years 2022–25, becoming the majority of candidates for urban jobs. Yet despite high unemployment among young adults, firms struggle to recruit qualified ‘talent’. To solve the mismatch, Beijing is rethinking tertiary education.
In the current fiscal woes, Beijing’s zero-base budgeting ambition shoots for a sustainable fiscal future. The aim is better allocation, not austerity. The model seeks to send money where most needed, while cutting waste, working with, not against stimulus action. This fiscal experiment, perhaps the most far-reaching yet under Xi, seeks to modernise how local areas spend—habits set in stone for decades.