Newsletter By 2025-12-31
In an era where trends rise and fall with unprecedented speed, the global order is continually reshaped by ongoing development, with artificial intelligence playing a role alongside other forces. This dynamic interplay shapes the trajectory of the future while subtly and tangibly influencing our everyday lives. On December 18, 2025, the
ANBOUND Annual Conference 2026 was held in Chengdu. At a time when uncertainty has become the norm, ANBOUND's founder Mr. Kung Chan, along with the research team and distinguished invited members and guests, conducted in-depth analysis and roundtable discussions centered on strategic policy research in this regard. Major issues shaping the future, including China's economy, reverse urbanization, the AI tsunami, the competition for rare earth, energy security, and the revitalization of Northeast China are among the topics discussed.
China is transitioning into a post-industrial economy, driven by four key factors. First, decades of rapid real estate development have generated significant wealth and laid the foundation for a service-based economy, despite the challenges and aftereffects it has caused. Second, China’s economy has become heavily reliant on debt, with government debt reaching 70%-90% of GDP and local governments accumulating RMB 60 trillion in hidden liabilities. Third, the expansion of government bond issuance has become crucial to the economy, with central and local bonds reaching record levels in 2025, reflecting China’s growing dependence on debt to sustain growth. Finally, since 2012, China’s economic growth has slowed, with the country’s economy exceeding RMB 140 trillion and investment alone no longer driving further expansion, signaling that its peak period of domestic and international market growth has passed. As it stands, productive finance is ultimately a macro-level systemic integration, an engine of economic growth and a key lever capable of stimulating and sustaining long-term development, suggested
ANBOUND's founder Kung Chan.
>>Compared with the U.S. and Europe, China faces several constraints that limit its pace of New Space Economy (NSE) development. Airspace management remains rigid, with approval systems that lack the flexibility required for frequent commercial launches. International cooperation is still limited, as many of China’s satellite services remain concentrated domestically and within Belt and Road regions, reducing its influence in global rule-making. Coordination between military and civilian efforts also needs improvement; operational responsibilities and resource allocation remain fragmented, lowering efficiency. These challenges constrain the scale and momentum of China’s emerging space economy and do not yet fully match its status as a major spacefaring nation. Addressing them will be essential as China seeks to shape its own high frontier and participate more fully in the global NSE, writes
ANBOUND’s Researcher He Yan in an
article published in
Modern Diplomacy.
The Western Hemisphere strategy currently being constructed by the U.S. is a systematic upgrade of the Monroe Doctrine, a regional power reconfiguration centered on rules, resources, and supply chain politics. Its comprehensiveness lies in the tight binding of economic institutions, security cooperation, supply chain arrangements, and political governance. At the same time, its exclusivity lies in the use of laws, standards, and resource control to exclude external actors from the Americas. As more countries in the region are incorporated into this framework, the U.S. will effectively establish a single-center system in the Western Hemisphere, transforming the Americas from a strategic rear area into a pivotal hub of its global strategy. For China, this means that the window of strategic opportunity in the Americas is rapidly narrowing, and that U.S.-China competition is accelerating toward global expansion at the institutional and supply chain levels, noted
Zhou Chao, Research Fellow for Geopolitical Strategy programme at ANBOUND.
>>China's "de-growth" does not imply a sharp recession or stagnation, but rather signals a profound shift in the growth paradigm. It will challenge long-established assumptions about development, policy instruments, and even social attitudes. Successfully adapting to this transition hinges on whether the economy can truly move beyond its fixation on speed and its anxiety over shifting gears, and the shift from focusing on the presence of growth to the quality of the growth itself. This requires a comprehensive adjustment in macroeconomic policy and micro-level behavior, development philosophy, and values alike. If this transition can be managed effectively, China's economy may slow in terms of headline growth while simultaneously achieving a qualitative leap in the post-industrial stage, laying a solid foundation for the next phase of development, according to
Yang Xite, Research Fellow at ANBOUND.
>>In a fiercely competitive and high-stakes era, U.S. President Donald Trump relied heavily on officials with Goldman Sachs backgrounds during his first term. However, their views conflicted with Trump’s on key issues, which hindered policy implementation. Consequently, in his second term, Trump completely abandoned Goldman Sachs–affiliated experts, shifting to a team selected primarily for loyalty and ideological alignment. This change increases policy execution efficiency, but with reduced internal checks, the combination of regulatory easing and stimulus measures could allow financial risks to accumulate, making them more likely to erupt in the future, in the opinion of
Peng Maosheng, researcher at ANBOUND.
>>
