By Hasan Muhammad

Editor's Note: The writer is a freelance columnist on international affairs based in Karachi, Pakistan. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of China Economic Net.

In the first half of 2025, qualified foreign institutional investors emerged among the top-10 shareholders of over 70 listed Chinese companies, with holdings valued at about 6.8 billion yuan (roughly 950 million U.S. dollars). These are not speculative bets but long-term commitments across automobiles, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, and hardware. The A-share market itself has crossed the milestone of 100 trillion yuan in capitalization, supported by strong trading volumes through stock connect programs linking Shanghai and Shenzhen with Hong Kong.

This robust engagement reflects confidence not only in China’s industrial strengths but also in Beijing’s steady push toward high-quality development. Against the backdrop of a global economy expected to limp along at under 3 percent growth, China’s economy expanded by 5.3 percent in the first half of 2025, contributing nearly one-third of global growth. That alone underlines its unique role as the engine of recovery.

The People’s Bank of China has kept the one-year Loan Prime Rate steady at 3 percent, relying instead on targeted credit tools. Fiscal policy has taken the lead: a deficit target of 4 percent of GDP, 1.3 trillion yuan in ultra-long-term bonds, and 4.4 trillion yuan in local government special bonds. These measures are designed not merely to stabilize markets but also to sustain employment, create over 12 million urban jobs, and ensure income growth keeps pace with expansion. It is a strategy that marries pragmatism with foresight.

This resilience has not gone unnoticed. Major global financial institutions have revised their China outlooks upward. Goldman Sachs maintains an overweight position on Chinese equities, citing the yuan’s appreciation against the dollar and the rapid commercialization of large artificial intelligence models. UBS Asset Management sees opportunities in dominant technology firms, while Morgan Stanley highlights that A-shares remain undervalued compared with global peers. Their bullishness underscores a critical reality: decoupling is more rhetoric than reality. Investors know that China is simply too central to the global economy to be ignored.

Indeed, since its recent market lows, Chinese equities have added nearly 1 trillion U.S. dollars in market value, even amid tariff wars and property woes. Abundant liquidity, coupled with the cautious participation of retail investors, has sustained momentum without triggering speculative excesses reminiscent of 2015. The result is a rally tempered by prudence.

One reason for this optimism lies in China’s technological renaissance. In 2025 alone, the country’s intelligent computing power is set to expand by over 40 percent, fueling breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and robotics. Open-source AI models developed by Chinese companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba are now ranked among the best globally, rivaling Western giants in sophistication. By February 2025, China had 250 million generative AI users, with applications spreading across education, healthcare, logistics, and creative industries.

A symbolic milestone came with the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, hosted in Beijing this August. Robots from 16 countries - including Germany, the United States, and Japan - competed in events ranging from kickboxing to relay races. Chinese models such as those from Unitree Robotics dazzled audiences with agility and precision, even as occasional stumbles reminded us that innovation is always a work in progress. The spectacle was more than entertainment; it was a demonstration of China’s position at the forefront of robotics, with implications for manufacturing, healthcare, and even space exploration.

These advances are not incidental - they are central to Beijing’s economic strategy. President Xi Jinping has consistently emphasized technological self-reliance as the foundation for long-term growth. By marrying proactive macroeconomic policies with a clear innovation agenda, China is building not just resilience but leadership in industries that will define the future.

All of this must be seen in a larger context. The global order is in transition from unipolarity to multipolarity, with China as a principal driver of that shift. Even as certain Western quarters push narratives of “de-risking” and “decoupling,” the hard evidence of foreign investment flows, international confidence, and cutting-edge technological achievements tells another story.

China’s experience offers a counterpoint to Western short-termism. By resisting the temptation of quick fixes and instead focusing on long-term structural reforms, Beijing has demonstrated that resilience comes not from rhetoric but from results. And in an era where geopolitical turbulence, from the Ukraine war to U.S. election uncertainty, casts a long shadow over markets, China provides the ballast that keeps the global economic ship steady.