2026: What We Lack, the Cocoon That Binds Us

Recently, poring over current commentary, every page brims with "breakthroughs," "growth," "opportunities," as though a golden age lies at our fingertips. Yet examining them late into the night, from between those dazzling lines, other words emerge — every volume inscribed with two characters: "scarcity."

The absurdity of this era: we manufacture abundance, yet remain mired in deprivation. We light up a digital cosmos of stars and seas, yet find ourselves trapped by the subterranean fires beneath each inch of precious soil. In the China of 2026, true scarcity is no longer overt material shortage, but a structural, suffocating misallocation and tension.

I. When the Skin Is Gone: The Rigid Noose of Hard Resources

The most visible scarcity remains those silent, tangible materials whose supply is nearly rigid.

The Flowing "New Blood" — Critical Minerals New energy vehicles race like lightning, AI servers roar day and night — their shared "blood" is lithium, cobalt, rare earths, tin, tungsten. These unassuming metals have become the "strategic ribs" of the intelligent age. Demand surges, yet supply remains mired in geopolitical disruption (such as disturbances in Myanmar and Indonesia) and resource depletion (the global tin reserve-to-production ratio is merely 15 years). With nationwide effort we pursue "mineral exploration breakthroughs," discovering chromite in Xinjiang and prospecting for zirconium-hafnium ores in Hainan — precisely because the chill of "chokepoint" vulnerability has seeped into our marrow. This is not a shortfall in production, but a collision between the growth paradigm and the planet's physical limits.
The Burning "New Coal" — Power and Chips AI has been called "the largest infrastructure project in human history" — it devours computing power, and even more voraciously, electricity. Every wisp of AI-generated phantom requires actual megawatt-hours to sustain it. The greater irony is that the "visible heart" powering this "invisible intelligence" — high-end chips, especially memory chips (HBM) — is caught in frenzied price surges and absolute shortage. Smart vehicles and AI servers are waging a cross-dimensional war; automakers exclaim that memory has "gone mad" in price, with supply fulfillment rates perhaps below 50%. This scarcity is the cruel "tribute" that digital civilization exacts from the physical world.

II. Anxiety of the Soul: The Universal Thirst for a Soft Environment

What is scarcer than tangible resources is the soft environment that sustains the system's operation.

The Collapse of Certainty Zhou Hanmin, Standing Committee member of the National Committee of the CPPCC, states directly that in 2026 the world's greatest scarcity is stability, predictability, and trustworthy institutional supply. Geopolitical logic supplants efficiency logic; rules are weaponized. When the world becomes a high-entropy reactor, any long-term planning becomes a luxury. China's "five imperatives" are essentially about using internal certainty to counter external uncertainty — and this itself is a scarce commodity.
The Vacuum of "Digital Craftsmen" The blueprint for the digital economy is grand, but institutional calculations reveal a glaring digital talent gap in the tens of millions. We lack data engineers, we lack AI trainers, and even more we lack hybrid talents who understand both geological exploration and information technology. This exposes the fatal time lag between the education system and industry's breakneck expansion. Human capital — this pillar of wealth long neglected by traditional accounting systems (accounting for over 60% of global wealth) — remains a weak link in China.

III. The Predicament of the Way: The Ultimate Paradox of Value Creation

The deepest scarcity stems from a paradox of modernity.

Zhang Xiaojing of the National Institution for Finance and Development identifies the "paradox of value": the prices of technology products decline by Moore's Law, yet the ultimate returns from all sources of value creation (investment in human and intangible capital) frantically flow toward and settle in the scarce tangible assets with the least supply elasticity (such as specific land, energy, minerals). As though a grand labor, in the end, merely adds rent for landlords and mine owners.

Thus we observe:

Creators do not possess: The wisdom of engineers and artists, crystallized into code and works, yet their valuations flow to the property developers where data centers are located.
Innovation held hostage by ground rent: The most cutting-edge AI companies may find their lifelines tied to the output of some lithium mine or the capacity of some undersea cable.
The predicament of "investing in people": Everyone knows human capital is fundamental, but it "cannot be mortgaged, cannot be liquidated" — under the inertia of valuing "immediate asset formation," it appears "uneconomical." The source of funding becomes a conundrum.

What is scarce is a system of distribution and property rights that allows value creators to truly enjoy the value they create, and enables intangible innovation to break free from the hostage of tangible ground rent.

Conclusion: Breaking the Cocoon, or Spinning It

The China of 2026 stands at a singularity. We are scarce in mineral resources, yet digging furiously; we are scarce in chip computing power, yet sprinting at full force; we are scarce in certainty, yet striving to become others' certainty; we are scarce in the courage and mechanisms for "investing in people," yet have recognized this as the only way forward.

All these scarcities weave a colossal cocoon. It is formed jointly by technology's infinite desire and resources' rigid finitude, growth's grand narrative and institutions' fragile brittleness, value's virtual ascent and ground rent's heavy gravity.

The path to breaking the cocoon lies not in chasing the phantom dream of "universal abundance," but in the lucidity that confronts "structural scarcity" head-on. It means redefining wealth (incorporating human and intangible capital), practicing "two-front warfare" (reaching skyward to develop innovation while standing grounded to control resources), and above all, with the resilience of sovereign continuity, maintaining — amid the global diffusion of entropy — the clarity and growth of a negentropic life form.

Otherwise, the harder we strive to fill each hole of scarcity, the more deeply we may bind ourselves within this magnificent yet suffocating cocoon — spun from scarcity itself.

This cocoon — in 2026, can we break it?

Copyright Notice: This is a preview translation — Chinese original is the authoritative version. Copyright belongs to Guangzhou Phaenarete AI Technology Co., Ltd. Unauthorized reproduction, citation, or distribution is prohibited.