Chapter 955
Cooperation Conditions from the Western Team
Tang capital.
The glass curtain wall of Galaxy Technology's headquarters building reflects the outline of the Qinling Mountains in the distance, making it look incredibly magnificent.
Wang Donglai sat in his office, with three screens in front of him displaying Galaxy Supermarket's recent revenue report, Xuanwu Battery's global supply distribution table for the third quarter, and Galaxy Aerospace's weekly progress report on the construction of the "Pioneer Base".
Wa's voice suddenly rang out from the surround sound system, carrying an unusual solemnity.
"Boss, there's an encrypted communication in Beijing, with the highest priority."
Wang Donglai put down the stylus in his hand, and the full text of the communication had already appeared on the screen.
He scanned the page line by line, his face as calm as a lake in deep winter, revealing no ripples.
The message was brief: Three days later, Wu Qingsong, the chief administrator of Tangdu City, will visit the headquarters of Galaxy Technology, accompanied by a leader from the Beijing Development and Reform Commission.
There was only one issue: the peace negotiation proposal from the Western joint delegation.
Three days later, Wu Qingsong appeared on time in the reception room of Galaxy Technology's headquarters.
He was wearing a dark gray jacket, his hair was neatly combed, but the dark circles under his eyes couldn't hide the exhaustion from working non-stop.
Walking half a step behind Wu Qingsong was a slender official, Liu Zhiyuan, deputy director of the Development and Reform Commission. He wore thin-rimmed glasses, had sharp eyes, and shook hands with a light but steady grip.
Wu Qingsong didn't exchange pleasantries for long. He took a document marked "Confidential" from his briefcase and placed it on the table.
"President Wang, ten days ago, a joint Western delegation arrived in Beijing. It was led by the head of their Ministry of Commerce, along with trade representatives from the EU, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. It was quite a large delegation."
He paused for a moment, then continued, "The core of their proposal is that they require us to open up technology licensing in exchange for gradually easing restrictions on our technology imports."
Wang Donglai opened the document, glanced at it, and a faint smile appeared on his lips.
The smile contained neither mockery nor anger, but rather a knowing "I knew it" kind of understanding.
"They still use the same logic. When they blockade us, they say it's for 'national security.' But once we develop our own technology and can't be blocked anymore, they change their tune and say 'technology should be shared by all mankind.' Their attitude changes faster than flipping through a book."
Liu Zhiyuan nodded slightly in agreement, saying, "Academician Wang's words hit the nail on the head, so this time, we didn't follow their script."
He pushed over a meeting minutes, with several key rounds circled in red on the second page.
During the first formal meeting, the Western delegation pushed a thick list of open options across the table.
The list is divided into three parts: the first part requires Galaxy Technology to open up all of the technical patents of the Xuanwu battery; the second part requires opening up the core processes of the photolithography factory; and the third part requires opening up the formula and preparation process of the "Xirang" superconducting material.
In exchange, they promised to ease the technology blockade against us in stages, reduce tariffs on related products, and gradually restore the supply of high-end equipment and materials.
Wu Qingsong interjected, his tone barely concealing his anger: "Our negotiators looked through the list and then asked a question: What are you going to use to exchange for this list? Guess what they said?"
He sneered and said, "They said that opening the market is the greatest show of sincerity. Our negotiators simply pushed the list aside and said, 'If this is your sincerity, then today's talks can end here.'"
Wang Donglai chuckled softly, not interrupting him, and gestured for him to continue.
In the second meeting, the Western delegation adopted a noticeably more submissive stance.
Instead of proposing to open up all technology patents, they put forward another solution: to establish several joint ventures, with Chinese companies contributing technology and Western companies contributing capital and market channels, to jointly develop third-party markets.
The equity structure of the joint venture is open to discussion, as are profit distribution and management rights.
"It sounds like a concession, but it's actually just a change in name only."
Liu Zhiyuan picked up the conversation, his tone calm and sharp: "What is the essence of joint ventures? They want to use capital and market channels to exchange for our core technologies, learn our R&D processes, and understand our innovation system. Once they've learned it, the joint venture can fall apart. We've seen this trick far too many times over the past few decades."
Wang Donglai turned to the third page of the meeting minutes and paused for a moment.
The third meeting took place after the first two meetings broke down. The core members of the Western delegation—the head of the Ministry of Commerce, the EU Trade Commissioner, and the Japanese Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry—proposed a compromise in an informal setting. The compromise consisted of only two points: First, to expand the scope of cooperation, allowing Western companies to participate in China's high-end manufacturing and new energy infrastructure projects, while allowing Chinese companies to establish R&D centers in the West; second, to establish a "technology mutual recognition" mechanism, under which core patents from both sides could be cross-licensed under specific conditions.
"This proposal is more pragmatic than the previous two."
Wang Donglai closed the minutes, looked at Wu Qingsong and Liu Zhiyuan opposite him, and said, "They have finally realized that we are no longer the country that needed to exchange market access for technology twenty years ago. Our status has changed. Now we have the technology and the market. If they want our technology, they have to offer something truly equivalent."
Liu Zhiyuan nodded: "That's the same assessment from above. So the final agreement is to expand cooperation in several areas that don't involve core technologies, while promising not to block each other's participation in international standards setting. Specific terms are still being negotiated, but the general direction has been set. However,"
He paused, his gaze becoming more focused, and said, "Before any formal agreement is signed, the capital specifically requested that we come to Tangdu first to give you a full overview of this meeting. This is partly to ensure you have no objections to the cooperation framework, and partly to hear your assessment of the future." Wang Donglai stood up and walked to the window.
Outside the window, at the construction site of the Tang Imperial City, the steel arm of the tower crane slowly rotates in the autumn sunlight.
In the distance, the silver-gray factory buildings of the second phase of the Xuanwu Battery Industrial Park have been capped, and the last batch of robotic arms are being installed on the production line.
"Director Liu, Steward Wu, let me speak the truth."
He turned around, his gaze falling on the two officials, and said earnestly, “Technology isn’t like gold locked in a safe. No matter how tightly you lock it, it won’t stop others from finding ways to steal it. What truly protects technology isn’t the lock, but the speed of iteration. They want to cooperate with us, fine! But we must define the scope of cooperation and control the pace. What we can give and what we can’t give isn’t up to them, it’s up to us.”
He walked back to the coffee table, picked up the list of open access from the Western delegation, turned to page seven, pointed to a clause, and said, “For example, this one, ‘Core processes of the lithography factory.’ I can tell you both clearly that there is absolutely no room for negotiation on this clause. Why? Because the lithography factory is a completely new technological route that we have established, and its value is not only commercial but also strategic.”
He put the list down and sat back down on the sofa.
He spoke slowly, but every word carried a resolute power. This resoluteness did not come from self-confidence, but from a profound understanding of technological evolution.
"However, cooperation can be discussed in areas that do not involve core technologies, such as battery management systems for new energy vehicles, IoT standards for smart homes, and airworthiness certification for low-altitude aircraft. The premise is that cooperation must be based on true equality, not on us providing technology and them providing funding, but on joint research and development, sharing results, and synchronous iteration."
Liu Zhiyuan scribbled rapidly in his notebook, the scratching sound of his pen across the paper particularly clear in the quiet living room.
He looked up and asked a question: "Academician Wang, you just mentioned that the speed of technological iteration is the real protection. I would like to ask, in the next two or three years, which technological directions do you think will be the most critical? This judgment is very important for us to formulate medium and long-term strategies."
Wang Donglai pulled a blank A4 sheet of paper from under the coffee table, picked up a pen, and began writing as he spoke.
"Three directions. First, the low-altitude economy. We now have the Xuan Nu flying vehicle, unmanned ground vehicles, a quantum communication network covering major cities across the country, and a high-computing-power AI system capable of real-time scheduling of millions of aircraft. By integrating these four things, we can build the world's first 'integrated ground-air intelligent transportation system' in Tangdu within two years. The ground consists of unmanned vehicles, and the air consists of aircraft, all under unified scheduling and seamless connection. Once this system is implemented, it will not only be a means of transportation, but also a completely new industrial ecosystem."
He drew a simple diagram: the ground level represents driverless ride-hailing vehicles, the lower altitude level represents the Xuan Nu spacecraft, and the middle is marked with a dotted line as "Unified Dispatch Platform".
"Whoever builds this system first will have the right to define the standards for future urban transportation."
Wu Qingsong stared at the simple diagram, his eyes gradually brightening.
He recalled the intelligent transportation pilot project currently underway in Tangdu, where Galaxy Technology's driverless vehicles have already completed hundreds of thousands of rides in the High-tech Zone with zero major accidents.
If the Xuan Nu flying vehicle is also integrated, Tangdu's urban transportation will no longer be a flat network, but a three-dimensional, layered network. The ground will solve short-distance connections, while the low-altitude air will solve medium- and long-distance commutes, with the two seamlessly switching on a single platform.
This will completely change the way people travel, and it will also completely change the urban landscape of Tangdu.
Wang Donglai drew a circle next to "Integrated Ground-Air Intelligent Transportation System", marked it with the number "one", and then wrote a capital "two" below it.
"The second direction is the industrialization of quantum computing. Although our current quantum computers have the world's largest computing power, we are still some distance away from true industrialization. What is true industrialization? It means that quantum computers are no longer confined to laboratories for scientists to run simulations, but can be used in factories, hospitals, banks, and in the daily lives of ordinary people. To achieve this, quantum computing must be integrated with traditional computing power."
He drew a line between the two circles, labeling the line "Quantum-Classical Fusion Computing Architecture".
"Wa is designing a converged architecture that seamlessly integrates quantum computing and classical computing. Traditional computing will handle massive data processing and general tasks, while quantum computing will provide exponential acceleration for specific fields, such as drug molecule simulation, financial risk modeling, climate prediction, and new material design. Once this architecture is fully implemented, the service targets of quantum computing will expand from dozens of top laboratories to hundreds of thousands of enterprises, with costs reduced to one percent of current levels. That will be the true next-generation information infrastructure, something that can 'benefit more people.' The next industrial revolution will not be a single breakthrough in a technology, but a systemic explosion of a set of core capabilities: intelligent computing power will be cheap enough to allow any enterprise to train its own industry model; energy density will be high enough to completely rewrite the cost structure of logistics and manufacturing; and human-computer interaction will be natural enough to allow everyone to use AI without learning programming. The combined significance of these three capabilities is no less than that of the advent of electricity and the internet."
He paused, his gaze shifting to the construction site of the Tang Imperial City outside the window, his tone becoming deeper and slower.
"Tangdu's success today isn't due to the amount of land it has sold, but rather to the concentration of technology companies and engineering talent. Cities are containers for technology, but these containers themselves need upgrading. When energy prices are low enough, computing power is widespread enough, and air transport is fully open, the logic of urban planning needs to be rewritten. In the past, cities revolved around surface transportation and real estate. In the future, cities will revolve around computing power nodes, energy nodes, and three-dimensional transportation nodes. Whoever can first use new technologies to reconstruct the underlying framework of a city will gain the upper hand in the competition of the next decade. Therefore, Tangdu, this super-first-tier city, is just the beginning; it will develop even better in the future."
Upon hearing this, Wu Qingsong's expression changed from excitement to contemplation.
He certainly knew the weight of Wang Donglai's words; they weren't describing a distant, futuristic science fiction future, but rather pointing out a clear, actionable path.
Galaxy Technology's technology has reached a critical point where it can reconstruct the city's underlying infrastructure.
As the headquarters of Galaxy Technology, Tangdu boasts the strongest technical support, the most comprehensive policy support, and the most concentrated talent pool. Once this integrated architecture is fully operational, Tangdu will become the world's first truly "quantum intelligent city"—not just a place with a sign or a few screens, but a city where everything from the underlying infrastructure to the upper-level applications is based on quantum-classical fusion computing power.
Liu Zhiyuan suddenly asked, "Academician Wang, what about the third direction?"
Wang Donglai looked at the two of them, and drew a circle on the paper with his pen. In the middle of the circle was a lonely number.
He spoke at a steady pace, but the number he uttered seemed to carry some invisible weight, slowly pressing down.
"The third direction, and the most crucial one, is to use technology to redefine the value of workers."
This circle was like a silent depth charge, slowly detonating in the air of the reception room. (End of Chapter)