A year ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping stood before the 19th Communist Party Congress and laid out his ambitious plan for China to become a world leader by 2025 in advanced technologies such as robotics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. It was seen as a direct challenge to U.S. leadership in advanced technology. James Lewis, a specialist in China and technology at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says China recognizes that technological superiority helps give the United States an edge in national security and wants in on it. "The Chinese figured out that technology is the key to wealth and power, and the source of technology is still the West for China," says Lewis. The question is: "How do they get their hands on that Western technology?"

WHEN Germany occupied Poland during the second world war, a young Pole was scratching a living under false papers as a car mechanic. The man, Stanislaw Lem, who was to become one of world's most famous science fiction writers, used to "mend" German vehicles so they would break down. The habit never left him. With Summa Technologiae, his masterwork of non-fiction which has been translated into English for the first time, Lem has taken Western civilisation for a spin – with spectacular consequences. The book will be a fabulous shock to those who know only his science fiction, such as Solaris or The Cyberiad.