1. The European Union's competitiveness report released by Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief.
2. The report, in a way, is an acknowledgement of China's phenomenal transformation over the past decade toward a more sustainable and innovation-driven economy. The sheer fact that China is mentioned many times in the report and that the EU now sees a huge gap not just with the United States but also with China is telling, especially because many Europeans still see China as a country providing cheap labor — although that is no longer true, according to the Draghi report.
3. A decade ago, when China announced its strategic shift, from investment-driven quantitative economic growth to innovation-led high-quality development, not many people took it seriously. Today, China has become a global leader in research and development, renewable energy including solar and wind energy, and electric vehicles (EVs).
4. China is catching up fast with the industrialized world, partly by learning from the EU and other developed economies, but more importantly through massive investments in R&D. Who would have thought just a decade ago that China's robot density would rank fifth in the world, trailing South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan but ahead of the US and the average EU member state?
