At a neighbourhood vegetable market in China, an elderly shopper selects a bundle of greens, reaches for a mobile phone and scans a black-and-white square taped to the vendor’s stall.
Within seconds, the vegetables are paid for, without cash changing hands, a bank card being produced or an expensive payment terminal sitting on the counter.
The same gesture can pay a taxi driver, unlock a bicycle, settle a restaurant bill or make a temple donation, yet the technology behind it was not invented in China.
Japan’s Denso Wave developed the QR code in 1994 to track automotive components. The code could hold about 7,000 numerals and be read more than 10 times faster than competing codes.
China’s achievement came later, when it transformed an industrial tracking tool into part of ordinary financial life.
Rwandans should recognise the principle, even though this is not an attempt to compare Rwanda with China in economic size, industrial capacity or financial strength.
Rwanda is, however, slowly following the path of countries that understood that technology becomes transformative only when it is connected to infrastructure, policy and widespread public use.
Rwanda did not invent mobile money, yet it helped turn the telephone into a bank branch, payment counter and personal wallet.
A farmer can receive money without travelling to town, while a shopkeeper can accept payment without owning a card machine. Rwanda’s 2024 FinScope survey found that 96% of adults were financially included, largely because digital services reached people whom conventional banking had not.
IremboGov follows the same logic by bringing more than 100 public services onto one platform. Its importance does not come from inventing the internet or electronic payments, but from connecting existing technologies so that people can obtain essential services without losing an entire day moving between government offices.
Rwanda remains at an early stage, but the direction makes sense: adopt what works, adapt it to local realities and gradually make it ordinary.
This is also the larger story of China, whose “copycat” reputation overlooks its exceptional ability to take an invention and build an entire ecosystem around it.
Japan introduced the Shinkansen in 1964, while France later developed the TGV, and China initially depended on foreign trains and expertise. It then standardised tracks, signalling, stations, ticketing and train designs while developing its own engineers, factories and suppliers.
By the end of 2025, China’s high-speed rail network had reached 50,400 kilometres, up nearly 33% from 37,900 kilometres in 2020 and longer than all other national high-speed networks combined.
During 2025 alone, China opened 2,862 kilometres of high-speed track and invested 901.5 billion yuan, approximately US$128 billion, in its railway system.
Those figures become meaningful when placed inside ordinary lives. Chinese railways carried 4.255 billion passenger journeys in 2025, allowing workers, students and small traders to move between distant cities without surrendering an entire day to the journey.
The same formula is transforming the motor industry. China did not invent the electric car or the lithium-ion battery, but it connected mineral processors, battery factories, software developers, carmakers, incentives and charging infrastructure.
In 2025, China produced 70% of the world’s electric cars and more than 80% of its battery cells, according to the International Energy Agency.
It also manufactured approximately 85% of the cathode materials and more than 90% of the anode materials used in electric-car batteries.
China had more than 4.7 million public charging points by the end of 2025, representing over 65% of the global total. Approximately 1.3 million were installed during that year alone, accounting for more than three-quarters of worldwide growth.
For Rwanda, the lesson is not to reproduce China’s scale, but to understand the system behind its success.
Importing electric buses, motorcycles and cars or granting tax incentives will achieve little unless the vehicles are supported by reliable electricity, compatible charging standards, affordable financing, trained mechanics, spare parts and battery-recycling systems.
China’s model also carries serious weaknesses, including industrial overcapacity, costly subsidies, local government debt, destructive price wars and concerns about privacy and surveillance.
Scale can make a useful technology affordable, but it can also multiply expensive mistakes.
The claim that China only commercialises discoveries made elsewhere is nevertheless becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. China spent 3.926 trillion yuan on research and development in 2025, equivalent to 2.8% of its economy, and entered the top 10 of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index for the first time.
Science may discover what is possible, while technology turns that discovery into a product, but engineering, infrastructure and competition determine whether it reaches ordinary people.
A patent may identify who invented the future, but history may ultimately remember who made it affordable, dependable and so familiar that people stopped noticing they were already living in it.
