The Nation's Magnetic Core

The Great Power’s Magnetic Core

How can an unremarkable magnet hold the lifeblood of the world’s most advanced industries in its grip? And how can an ordinary workshop technician forge an iron backbone to defend national security?

In the late 1980s, as the West imposed a tight blockade on rare-earth permanent magnet technology, the young technician Chen Jianguo began his destiny-defying journey in a dilapidated factory. From restoring core components by hand with a German grinder to foiling an international smuggling conspiracy, he led Hongxing Group through the hardest early stages of China’s rare-earth industry.

From the 1990s into the new millennium, international commercial warfare erupted in full force. Facing patent crackdowns and financial short-selling by American and Japanese giants, Chen Jianguo and his son met every challenge head-on. They not only won an epic patent lawsuit overseas, but also established a rare-earth exchange in Shanghai, breaking the West’s century-long monopoly on global pricing once and for all.

In the new era, Chen Jianguo took command and led the charge, combining rare-earth permanent magnets with high-temperature superconductors to give the nation’s artificial sun and aircraft-carrier electromagnetic launch systems powerful Chinese hearts. This is an industrial epic spanning thirty years, and a stirring legend about a generation of Chinese industrial workers using technology to strengthen the backbone of their nation!

Key tags: Great-power technology, rare-earth rivalry, hardcore industry, international business warfare, strengthening the nation through science and technology

This is an industrial epic spanning thirty years. It tells not only of one company’s rise, but also of how a generation of Chinese industrial workers used the technology in their hands to strengthen the nation’s unbending industrial backbone amid global struggles over resources, finance, and science and technology!

Key tags:

Great-power technology, rare-earth rivalry, hardcore industry, international business warfare, strengthening the nation through science and technology