Measure Twice, Cut Once: Assessing Some China–US Technology Connections

The desire to “decouple” is a natural response to the deterioration of relations between nations. For the United States and People’s Republic of China, it is a response rooted in both countries’ historical experience during the Cold War. However, decades of interdependence have made disconnection both painful and unrealistic. Moreover, unlike the US approach against the Soviet Union, the US view of China lacks the strategic clarity that would make broad disconnection desirable. For this reason, the authors argue in favor of an incremental approach rooted in the indeterminacy of the current moment and recognition of the fact that interdependence is likely to continue.

Biotechnology is at the center of a long-term contest for power between the United States and China. Extant economic impact has been quietly delivered using first-generationtools and methods based on the capability to modify and move genes from one organism to another. Advanced biological engineering using second-generation tools and methods has already delivered to market materials with novel properties that are useful in both civilian and military applications, where those new materials cannot plausibly be made via synthetic chemistry. A technological edge in biological engineering and manufacturing will provide a substantive and lasting advantage that spans the full economy and the entire planet. The management of biotechnological trade and information flows in the near term will have consequences that will play out over decades.

American and Chinese space programs have been sharply disconnected for the last two decades and remain so today. Between the two countries, America has greater strengths and is likely to maintain its advantages in the decades ahead. Notwithstanding this, this paper observes that our present policies may have long-term costs that exceed their benefits to America. While endorsing the thrust of our present policies toward disconnection between civil space activities on each side, this discussion advises framing next steps with a greater focus on effects on the US space industry and especially clarity about US strategic objectives in space.

As the United States and China increase their geopolitical competition, there is growing controversy over how and how much key technological capabilities should be separated. In this debate, few technologies are as important, or as difficult to deal with, as artificial intelligence (AI). Today, AI knowledge, people, and commerce are continuously exchanged between the two powers, and the entire global population benefits from the advances that result. Trying to disconnect research and development efforts from China will not propel America forward or significantly delay China’s progress but, rather, hold us both back. At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that China will take advantage of our open culture to exploit US accomplishments. We need to insist that AI research at US universities protects sensitive work. But AI is not a “thing” that can be controlled. It is math. For the United States to be a leader in AI, we need to invest in its development through education and training of our population and in the robustness of our industry. By making investments, collaborating intelligently, and rapidly adopting AI-enabled capabilities, we will be better positioned to sustain our leadership in AI.

This paper evaluates the US government's expanding export controls on Huawei. There are four major findings. First, Chinese efforts to replace American capital equipment and electronic design automation (EDA) tools with homegrown alternatives are very unlikely to succeed. Second, the impact on Huawei will depend on the availability of international alternatives to American technology. Third, these constraints will not knock Huawei out of the telecommunications industry. Finally, the longer-term costs for American capital equipment and EDA tool vendors could loom large as foreign customers perceive American-made or -designed products as carrying significant political risk and strive to develop alternative sources.

The US and China’s telecommunications sectors have long been interconnected, but both countries are developing policies that will decouple technology stacks, supply chains, and markets. Once in motion, these policies will be difficult to reverse, given the political distrust that has engulfed the bilateral relationship. Over the next five years, a full bifurcation may take the industry back to the days of separate and competing national standards, problems with interoperability, and the end of a globalized value chain with all its attendant benefits in terms of cost, innovation, and compatibility. The growing cleavage between the two telecommunications systems will have broad ripple effects across a great number of technological sectors, including an intensifying struggle over the future of the internet. The challenge for US policymakers over the next decade will be to counter China’s early lead in 5G while simultaneously enabling interoperability and a globalized supply chain. This will require perceptive domestic industrial policies, substantial investment, and skillful diplomacy that values and refreshes global multi-stakeholder governance and standards-setting processes. Navigating this complex geopolitical, technical, and economic landscape will be hugely difficult for existing US institutions and will require US officials to reimagine how the United States sets telecommunications policy within broader technology policy frameworks.

Members of the US government have expressed concern that the Chinese government is targeting American researchers and labs for espionage and theft of information with commercial, military, and intelligence value. As of the writing of this paper in July 2020, it is the opinion of the author that there is insufficient evidence that academic/economic espionage by Chinese nationals is a widespread problem at US universities. Existing policy solutions, which focus primarily on investigations and visa restrictions, represent an overcorrection and will likely erode the primacy of American science in the long term. The paper proposes more moderate policies to address the problem consistent with the principles of nondiscrimination and Open Science.

One of the most difficult and controversial questions in US policy toward China is how to manage the risk associated with Chinese students and researchers in the United States. This paper provides an overview of this debate, reviews what we know and do not know about the relevant questions, and distills priorities and principles for analysts and policymakers. It concludes that large-scale reductions in US-based Chinese students and researchers are, at present, unlikely to be in the US national interest. While remaining open, US policymakers should focus on improving risk assessment and risk management, strengthen intelligence collection and analysis, and diversify the country’s talent pipelines.