Tim Byrnes is an unlikely symbol of China’s bid to become the world’s high-tech superpower. For a start he is Australian. Yet the 39-year-old quantum physicist’s decision to swap a research post in New York for Shanghai goes some way to explaining the lengths to which Beijing is going in its efforts to upend the world order.

… “China has been tapping into global commercial and scientific networks, promoting technology transfers, foreign R&D investment and training of Chinese scientists and engineers overseas,” says Michael Raska, assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.