#65: Why does China smelt ~85% of the world's magnesium?
One metal quietly holds up every car and every fighter jet, and almost all of it is made in a single Chinese province. India buys 86% of its own supply from there.
Decoding the Dragon
By Jayant Mundhra
Live Last read · last published · next check
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#64: Why does China make 99% of the world's gallium?
Beijing has paused its ban on selling gallium and germanium to America, but only until 27 November. India, wholly import-reliant, is now racing to make its own.
#63: Why does India import over 90% of its tungsten?
China mines nearly 80% of the world's tungsten and has now learned to switch it off, and India's tanks and chips sit at the wrong end of the valve.
#62: Why does China ship 18 times more parcels than India?
China now moves roughly 545mn parcels every single day on a private courier machine India is only now trying to build by decree.
#61: Why has China's land-sale income crashed 65% since 2021?
China built its whole growth model on selling land, that engine has now seized, and India never bothered to build one at all.
#60: Why is China now building 120 stealth fighters a year?
The WS-15 engine cured China's decades-old aviation 'heart disease', just as India sits on 30 finished fighters grounded for want of engines.
#59: Why does China build 70% of the world's tunnel borers?
The machine that digs almost every metro and bullet-train tunnel is now Chinese, and India, the world's second-biggest buyer, still makes none.
#58: Why do 126mn Chinese pets now outnumber its toddlers?
China's 2025 births fell to 7.92mn, the lowest since 1949, and its urban cats and dogs have quietly overtaken its small children. India is a decade behind on the same curve.
#57: Why did China build ~770,000 factory robots last year?
China is automating before it grows rich, tearing up a century-old development script, and India's cheap-labour advantage is the collateral damage.
#56: Why is China betting $19bn on turning coal into plastic?
While the world watches China's solar and EV boom, Beijing has quietly built a shadow oil industry out of coal, and India wants to copy a playbook its own geology may not allow.
#55: Why did China cap its own aluminium at 45mn tonnes?
Beijing froze the world's biggest smelting machine on purpose, and the growth it gave up is now India's to win, or to lose.
#54: Why does $3.7tn of China's finance sit in one fund?
In 2025 Beijing folded its banks, its bad-debt managers and its margin desk into a single state fund, and India's LIC is quietly walking the same road.
#53: China's $549bn Invasion of USA's Backyard!
China has quietly become South America's ports, grids and mines, and India's tiny $24mn lithium bet shows just how far behind it starts.
#52: Why is 97% of Arabian Sea squid fishing Chinese?
A vast, entirely unregulated Chinese squid fleet has parked itself on the edge of India's western seaboard, and New Delhi is only now learning to treat it as a security problem.