In the western region of Germany and in the state of Rieland-Palatinate, there are mountain highlands surrounded by dense forests, one of which is called the Nürburgring circuit, or “Green Hell” because of its danger.
This circuit gained its fame from being dedicated to testing the performance of cars for major companies such as BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche.
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In the 2025 race, the circuit witnessed a new event in testing the performance of electric cars, as the Chinese Xiaomi – which built its first car a year ago – was able to win the race after crossing the designated track in 7 minutes and 5 seconds, breaking the previous record achieved by Porsche in 7 minutes and 7 seconds.
The victory of Xiaomi – already famous for phones and home appliances – in the world famous racetrack for automotive performance was a symbol of China’s rapid and surprising rise towards clean energy dominance and massive technological superiority.
The rise of the Chinese company Xiaomi, which is less than 20 years old, reflects its fierce competition with… Apple The American company, which last year stopped projects to develop electric cars after a decade of working on them.
The competition between Apple and Xiaomi in the technological fields – and the Chinese company’s sweep of sales markets at the expense of its long-standing American rival – means a small part of the Chinese success in rising in the field of manufacturing, a success that the United States could not obstruct.
This topic was the focus of a published study Roya Center for Studies and Research A paper titled “The reasons for the Chinese rise and the American failure to obstruct or stop it“.
Between Apple and Xiaomi
The study began to review Xiaomi’s journey to demonstrate the strength of its rise and dominance despite its newness in the market, as it indicated that it was founded in 2010 in Beijing by engineer and entrepreneur Lei Jun and a number of former engineers at Google and Motorola, with the vision of “creating high-quality technology at affordable prices for everyone.”
Within a few years, Xiaomi became the No. 1 brand in China, then expanded to India, Europe, and the Middle East, and by 2021, it surpassed Apple for a short period to become the No. 2 brand in the world in phone sales after Samsung.
In 2021, Xiaomi officially announced its entry into the smart electric car sector, and in 2024 it launched its first car, the Xiaomi SU7, which is the direct Chinese competitor to the American Tesla. The car achieved a record at the 2025 Nürburgring race track to prove its strength in performance and engineering.
As for the giant American computing company (Apple), in 2014, it considered developing electric cars, and this was appropriate for its financial capacity, as its market value at that time reached 600 billion dollars, and its cash reserves reached 40 billion, which far exceeds Xiaomi’s financial resources.
But the United States doesn’t have the energy system or manufacturing capacity of China, so there was no easy infrastructure for Apple to take advantage of.
As a result, in 2024, Apple’s board of directors halted the decade-long development of electric cars, laid off a third of the team that had been allocated to the project, and directed the rest to the areas of artificial intelligence.
The study pointed out that the competition between Apple and Xiaomi in the field of electric cars summarizes the story of the Chinese rise and the American confusion in confronting or obstructing it, which raises a question about the extent to which China can continue its amazing rise, and will the United States remain confused about how to obstruct or stop it?
Reasons for the rise of the Chinese model
There are many reasons why the Chinese model in the manufacturing field has increased at a remarkable pace in recent years, despite much optimism in the West about the slowdown of the Chinese economy and its inability to surpass the United States as the largest economy in the world. The most important of these reasons are:
1- Self-sufficiency in manufacturing and technological progress
Behind this strategic goal is a strict political will. In 2015, planners in Beijing unveiled the “Made in China 2025” plan, a very ambitious program to lead the industries of the future.
The plan aimed to develop Chinese manufacturing in the energy and high-tech materials sectors. It also aimed to reduce the country’s dependence on imports and foreign companies, and improve the competitiveness of Chinese companies in global markets.
The Chinese government confirmed this vision with massive financial support, spending between 1% and 2% of the gross domestic product annually, succeeding due to these efforts in dominating the drone market and the areas of industrial automation.
2- Investing in deep infrastructure
One of the most prominent reasons why the Chinese model has risen so quickly is the state’s focus on investing in basic physical systems that enable innovation and efficient production, and part of this infrastructure consists of transportation systems, such as roads, railways, and ports.
In the past 30 years, China has built a national network of highways twice as long as the US interstate network, a high-speed train network with more miles of track than the rest of the world combined, and a massive network of ports, the largest of which is Shanghai, which transports more goods than all the ports in the United States.
The study compared the highway network and high-speed train networks in the United States, the European Union, and China, revealing that the latter has 190,000 kilometers by the end of 2024, while the United States does not exceed 78.7 thousand kilometers, and the European Union 75 kilometers.
3- Success in developing the digital network
China had a local Internet that quickly connected almost the entire population, while at the same time controlling – or blocking – what it did not want its people to see from the outside.
The development of the Internet has brought enormous benefits to China’s industrial sectors and created a high-tech ecosystem.
4- Advances in the electrical field
Electricity has become the foundation of Chinese infrastructure. Over the last three decades, China has led the world in building power plants, and now produces more electricity annually than the United States and the European Union combined.
This abundant supply of energy has enabled the rapid growth of electricity-based transportation systems, specifically high-speed rail and electric cars.
In addition to the reasons mentioned, there are other factors such as the industrial workforce, the growing ambition of entrepreneurs, and the escape from US sanctions and restrictions on the export of artificial intelligence chips.
These strong reasons do not mean that government programs and plans have been completely successful, but rather they suffered from some negative consequences of generous government support, which led to many cases of government waste and corruption.
Reasons for the American failure to obstruct the Chinese rise
The most important of these reasons are:
1- The inferiority view of China
Some American leaders still have the same old impressions and ideas about China and its industrial and technical backwardness, and thus live in obliviousness to the tremendous changes that have occurred there.
2- United States control in the technological field
The superiority of the United States in many important fields, such as software, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence, in addition to the innovation system led by American universities, is considered one of the most important factors that made Washington not care about the Chinese rise.
3- The United States is lagging behind in infrastructure compared to China
The United States did not renew its infrastructure built in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and to make matters worse, it did not create a deep infrastructure sufficient to meet the enormous technological challenges of the current century.
4- The contraction of the American industrial sector
Among the main reasons for the American failure to obstruct China is that the American industrial sector continues to shrink amid product delays, layoffs of workers, and a decline in the quality of production.
In addition to these reasons, there are challenges for American companies in providing low-wage workers found in China and India.
The study indicated that US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to impose customs duties on China of up to 100% may have broad and complex implications.
Although the motives for the decision are focused on confronting Chinese control over rare minerals and strategic supply chains, it faces obstacles and factors that limit its effectiveness, which makes it fall within the same improvisational policies that attempt to obstruct the Chinese rise, without an integrated vision and coordinated political efforts, and therefore it is not expected to change anything.
The study concluded that Washington is currently passive in the face of the progress of the technology and manufacturing sectors in China, and is content with obstructing it instead of focusing on creating an appropriate environment for innovation and manufacturing. If the United States continues to withdraw from the global system and its institutions, China will inevitably fill that void.