The Industrial Colossus: Factories and Resources Powering China’s Rise

Power is built before it is projected. China's rise rests upon an industrial system of extraordinary scale: factories, shipyards, transportation networks, mineral-processing facilities, energy technologies, and supply chains reaching across the globe. These capabilities give Beijing more than commercial strength. They provide the material foundation for national power. The Industrial Colossus examines the sectors behind China's transformation into the world's manufacturing center. It explores critical minerals, batteries, electric vehicles, clean-energy systems, shipbuilding, infrastructure construction, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing. It also investigates the vulnerabilities created when other nations become dependent upon Chinese production. The United States remains a technological and economic giant, but it must now contend with the consequences of decades of industrial migration and underinvestment. The second volume of The Red Ascendancy shows how the economic gains examined in Volume One became physical capacity-and how that capacity supports the technological and strategic contests that follow.