On the ceremony held to mark the 75th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), September 30, 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, ‘No challenges can stop China’s progress.’ China is the fastest-growing and most dynamic global market for emerging digital technologies.
China is experiencing rapid and large-scale deployment of emerging technologies, including AI, 5G, IoT, and blockchain-based technologies. China has made enormous investments and implemented policies that have contributed significantly to its economic growth, military capability, and global influence. China’s rapid technological advances are playing a leading role in contemporary geopolitical competition, while the U.S. has maintained its position as the technological dominant power for decades. From a technology point of view, over the past decades, China has risen from a poor developing country to an economic powerhouse and a center of innovation and research.
The new advancement has threatened western nations, especially the U.S. position, which has traditionally been known as the most developed nation, and set new challenges for them to compete with China and especially to deal with the massive manufacturing sectors. And now the U.S. and its partners have a range of concerns about how China may exploit technology in ways that challenge many of their interests and values. China’s role in global technology, in the development of 5G (fifth generation), wireless technology, AI and weapons enabled by autonomy and artificial intelligence, power grid cybersecurity, surveillance technologies, semiconductors, biotechnology, financial technology, and its space technological development, causes fear in Western countries.
The U.S. is in an economic and technological race with China, in which the U.S. must compete with rather than contain China. China-US rivalry intensifies. The Chinese military and defense industry have undertaken major initiatives in research, development, and experimentation in autonomy and AI-enabled weapons systems, and the U.S. fears that this could threaten global security and wants to closely monitor Chinese military and technological advancements, exercise caution, and engage in dialogue with allies and partners ‘to reduce the risk of unintended escalation’.
In the intensifying competition to deploy 5G wireless networks, China and the U.S. have taken very different approaches in developing these networks, with risks to’split ‘the digital ecosystem worldwide, spurred by China’s Belt and Road initiative, and the potential for China ‘to lock in’ other nations with its 5G technology. The U.S. should pursue more flexible and timely spectrum policies, scalable alternatives for 5G equipment and could make up for lost time with a more coordinated 5G strategy, and to have a long-term plan to develop future platforms enabled by advanced mobile networks.
The U.S. and its allies see Chinese technology transfer as a potential risk to their economic security and the resilience of their companies to withstand potential reprisal and loss of market share. For example, Huawei boasts in its annual report that its ‘Safe City projects’ are in 700 cities across more than hundred countries, and it seems there is relatively little correlation between such platform adoption and the levels of democracy and freedom in adopting countries. The company Huawei broke out into the very top of the world in terms of quality and value of mobile devices and telecommunication equipment, and for years it has suffered unproven accusations from the U.S. and western countries that its products enable the collection of data and that China opens access to telecommunication networks through the world.
According to ‘China Daily,’ members of the British intelligence service tried to find the so-called ‘backdoor’, but without success. And despite that, they continue to claim that Huawei is harming the U.S., Great Britain, and other countries’. Western countries relations with Huawei culminated in the arrest of the company’ founder’s daughter, which reflects the fear that reigns in the West over the rise of Chinese new technologies. Huawei, in order to be present in the western market, was forced to replace approximately 4000 components (with inferior western components) at a cost of about 2 billion USD, just to overcome the western sanctions, which is unimaginable.
Tiktok, another Chinese technology giant, has been targeted by western sanctions. It has gained 150 million users in the U.S.A. alone, and many Americans are earning from this social network. In interviews and testimony before Congress about Tiktok, the highest officials of the FBI and CIA qualified the threat to national security that this network allegedly represents as purely hypothetical. Reuters reported that while Donald Trump was still president, he signed a covert action order authorizing the CIA to use social media and manipulate attitudes about China, and also that there are other secret U.S. cyber-influence programs on Iran, Russia, and other actors.
Judging by its Confucian nature and historical experience, China will strive for peaceful technological development and cooperation. And it will have to be ready for all the challenges that cooperation with the collective West and with the U.S. in particular brings. The trade embargoes that started during Donald Trump’s presidency did not cause a general trade war, but they are continuously present by clanking of weapons in the Southern Chinese Sea with additional EU protectionist measures. Tensions between China, the U.S., and Europe have increased over the last decade, with Western nations increasing tariffs and restrictions on Beijing’s access to advanced technology.
In Beijing, they obviously believe that by accelerating technological development and innovations in the field of production of high-quality products, they will prevent possible economic difficulties caused by protectionism in the U.S.A. and EU and that they will become an even stronger engine of the world economy with further strengthening of cooperation with developing countries. China’s government encourages and subsidizes the technology sector and enables it to stand for almost anything that the U.S. can possibly throw at it. Chinese are saying: Pressure generates motivation. And that the new economic pressure and technological sanctions on China will further inspire and motivate the technology sector to build their in-house intellectual properties, to transform their industries and people.
The recent success in sending a complex space mission to the dark side of the Moon, which managed to collect soil samples and bring them to earth in China, represents a symbolic entry into a new era of the race in technological progress in which the victory of the West is no longer guaranteed. And which would be in terms of the reaction of the U.S. and its allies to new security challenges for China and the whole world. After the successful completion of the mentioned mission, China announced that it is willing to share scientific knowledge and achievements with other countries, which was a universal message of the concept of further acceleration of Chinese development, offered to the world as a counterpoint to the aspiration and intentions of the U.S.
According to the International Federation of Robots, China will have 40% of total worldwide robotic sales, and it’s the biggest shareholder of the robotic global market at a net worth of $30 billion. It is No. 1 in sales for industrial robots. Speaking about tech and innovation America is home to the world’s largest tech companies driving AI advancements. And China is quickly developing much of the intellectual property in new industries such as semiconductors, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing. In terms of economic output and strength, the gap between America and China’s GDP stands at about $10 trillion. China could overtake America’s economy by 2035, assuming 5% in annual GDP growth. When it comes to military power, the U.S. has long been a global leader in defense spending, outpacing China by more than twofold as of 2022. Yet, this position is deteriorating; today, China’s military modernization means that its defense capabilities are perhaps even greater than the U.S., according to diverse sources, posing a greater risk to America’s military dominance.
China has proved to be very proficient in economics, genetics, nuclear fusion, space exploration, and applied quantum physics, and that has long worked for an advantage in military space technology, and is announcing great strides in electric cars with the highest autonomy per charging and the most competitive prices. China leads the world in 37 of 44 critical technologies, according to an Australian Think Thank report. The U.S. has been the dominant global player in developing and commercializing biotechnology and is likely to remain ahead in most biotechnology fields.
China is investing heavily in the biotechnology sector and is poised to become a critical player in the policy of global biotechnology research, development, and commercialization. China’s and the United States biotechnology sectors, including military uses of human performance, enhancement and synthetic bioweapon production, the collection of biomedical data (on both American and Chinese citizens) for espionage or other purposes, and access to control over biomedical data, all provoke significant national security concerns. However, more cooperation, shared interests in biosafety and biosecurity protocols, and shared concerns about nuclear security and non-proliferation are needed.
China is investing heavily in the semiconductor industry to produce advanced chips for military and other industries. The U.S. and its allies (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) are today the only economies with significant near-state-of-the-art chip fabrication factory capacity, and consider that China’s advanced chip systems could threaten the U.S. and its allies. And argue that it is in the strategic interest of the ‘United States and democratic allies’ to remain reliant on them for state-of-the-art computer chips. China has been developing and fielding an array of technology management approaches to grid security.
China is the world’s largest electricity producer. U.S.’s and China’s mutual concern about security of their increasingly complex electrical grids could provide an opening for mutual restraint on activities perceived as threatening each other’s grid networks. China has rapidly expanded its presence in outer space and is conducting activities to organize and better integrate space, cyberspace, and electronic warfare systems with its military capabilities. China and the United States should address sustainability and safety concerns like orbital debris, space traffic management, and the rise of mega-satellite constellations and engage in civil space projects while safeguarding national and world security interests.
China’s productivity will no doubt continue to grow faster than the U.S. There is little the United States and allies can do to slow China’s productivity growth because that growth doesn’t depend on any technology controlled by allied nations. That growth could have some benefits also for the U.S. and allied advanced industries. If China will be able to combine quality, innovation, and price, it can become an innovation leader, and this is a key reason why the threat from an innovative China is so significant. And it is about economic competition and global influence.
China’s rapid economic growth has positioned it as a major global player, leading to concerns about its influence on international trade, technology, manufacturing, innovation, and geopolitics. Many Western countries are wary of China’s advancements, which could threaten their own industries and jobs. China- Phobia and fear over the rise of China, which is fuelled by the western media, will not stop China from technological advancement. Achieving innovation parity would be much more self-sufficient in advanced industries and much less vulnerable to western sanctions and other trade tools used in an attempt to discipline China. China blocks Google, Meta, Instagram, and YouTube to protect their domestic market and for national security. They have built their own homegrown equivalents.
China hasn’t yet taken the overall lead in many areas. Chinese firms and industries are not as innovative as the global leaders in the western nations, but they are catching up in many cases at an extremely rapid pace, and the scale of their efforts is massive. However, China can be a globally competitive producer of technologically complex goods, such as machine tools, computers, solar panels, telecom equipment, high-speed rails, ships, drones, satellites, heavy equipment, and pharmaceuticals, and in all these industries, China has gained significant global market share. If China can become an innovative leader in robotics, electric vehicles, airplanes, semiconductors, batteries, drugs, and more, it can dominate the global economy. China invests in developing countries through their Belt and Road initiatives, and this will create more economic opportunities in the developing countries and reduce the desire of their most capable people to leave for the West (and maybe less immigration).
Money from the Asian and Belt and Road countries will no longer flow as much to the West; their money will be reinvested in their own countries. And China’s efforts are designed to defend and improve the current international order. To maintain a favorable balance of power, Chinese and United States policymakers must address technology companies’ initiatives to shape the global regulatory environment and adapt a set of standards compatible with values—respect for human rights, privacy, civil liberties, and democracy.
We are all on the weak side. The form of war is rapidly changing economic warfare, psychological warfare, and cyber warfare, so we all have reasons to fear.
