Most people consider blockchain as a simple bitcoin and others. In reality, it is a powerful technology for many purposes – and China is ahead of the United States by adopting it.
This is the subject of the end of Wednesday afternoon session on November 19 at COSM 2025: China wins the Blockchain derby: can the United States catch up?
The speaker is Jinyoung Englund – Director of strategy for China and emerging technology at the United States Ministry of Defense. The philosopher of George Gilder technology will offer an answer to his 4:15 speech.
For the moment, here is a quick primer (or a refreshment) on the blockchain and China:
How does blockchain differ from other digital technologies?
Of Investopedia:
Blockchain is a decentralized digital database or a large book that safely stores records on a transparent, immutable and falsification -resistant computers. Each “block” contains data, and the blocks are linked in a chronological “chain”.
The data in a blockchain cannot be modified without alert / disturb the entire network. Thus, precision and confidence should only be necessary at the entrance point, not throughout the system at any time. This is why the blockchain was favored for electronic currency.
If not, how can the blockchain be used?
Image credit: Touseef – This could smooth the world industry and trade. At the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Anoosh Kumar wrote last May,
… Its value extends to any environment where several actors must coordinate between fragmented systems. Consider the trip of a smartphone component from Taiwan, assembled in Vietnam and shipped to the United States. It passes through many hands: suppliers of components, assembly factories, maritime companies, customs agents and distributors, each using disparate and often incompatible systems. The verification of payment of delivery or treatment may involve weeks of delays and disputes. By providing a digital recording of visible in time in time almost real to all the authorized parts, a shared blockchain could replace these disparate systems. As each step is finished and connected to the large shared book, verification can occur almost instantly, reducing transaction times from weeks to hours and reducing operational costs up to 80%.
Chinese Blockchain Playbook: infrastructure, influence and new digital command, May 5, 2025
And this is where China’s interests are starting to enter.
Blockchain could give the global economic domination of China
First place is currently owned by the United States. But, as Kumar explains,
Blockchain offers a fundamentally new way of operating online: guaranteeing confidence, exchange value and coordinating complex systems without counting on traditional central platforms. However, while the West continues to debate in the way of regulating this technology, China is already building strategically with it. In 2019, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech urging the nation to “seize the opportunities” presented by technology. He formulated the blockchain as crucial for the “next series of technological innovation and industrial transformation”, declaring the intention of China to become a global “rules”. This positions the blockchain as a key front in the wider quest of China to shape global technological governance …
What makes the BSN particularly important is not only the scale, but its ambition declared. Its leaders describe it as a generational infrastructure. Il Yifan, CEO of Red Date Technology, provides that in the decades, all information systems will be based on the transmission of blockchain. Tan Min, the secretary general of the project, described the objective more explicitly: the construction of an internet dorsal thorn where “China controls the right to access to the Internet”. New numerical command
That’s right. If China wins it, the Internet will no longer be a free country.
An internet strictly controlled by China
Image credit: Peter Spicer – Kumar again:
Above all, the BSN embodies the divergent approach of China of ideals without Western authorization such as decentralization and anonymity. It exports the “blockchain with the Chinese characteristics”, an authorized system with known validators and governance aligned by the state which applies strict controls. These include compulsory recording of real identity, membership of the content of the state and safety standards, and technical powers for the decline or closure of transactions. Such characteristics of the state covering fundamentally contradict the values of Western blockchain such as immutability and resistance to censorship, reflecting China’s strategy to exploit the advantages of technology while integrating centralized control. New numerical command
But wait, you can ask: does not have China to forbid cryptocurrencies from 2025? Yes. To reaffirm “its commitment to centralize financial control and promote the use of its digital currency supported by the State, the Yuan”, prohibited China private possession (Coinpedia). It’s all state street now.
Nations can connect but they cannot disconnect
Kumar also notes that nations based on Chinese communication technology will discover that the system is only compatible with this technology. This facilitates the objective of total surveillance. But, in all honesty, many states of the Chinese client welcome this opportunity:
China is actively promoting its model of internet governance, including censorship and surveillance capacities, finding a receptive audience among many of its belt partners and its route. Beijing organized training sessions on these systems for foreign officials from countries such as Morocco, Egypt and Libya, often followed by the adoption of repressive cybersecurity laws that reflect China. The adoption of Chinese construction infrastructure as the BSN could subtly facilitate similar state control mechanisms on digital areas. New numerical command
The final objective of China, he says, is to exploit “a powerful form of strategic influence independently of the current global reign of the dollar”. It can integrate strangulation points into the system, where a free market (R) has once reigned.
In his opinion, a counter-decline is urgently necessary.
If your company or your non -profit organization would be assigned by the control of China on the Internet – and you want a contribution to a counter -stage – you register here to interact with the DOD Englund strategy director (Wednesday, November 19).
