Chinese tech is ramping up now.
Christopher Thomas & Sarah Kreps 24. *Chairman of Integrated Insights and formerly served as Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Managing Partner of McKinsey’s Asia Semiconductor Practice, and China Head at Intel. **John L. Wetherill Professor and Director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. “America Can’t Win the Tech Race Alone.” Foreign Affair. 1/26/2024. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/america-cant-win-tech-race-alone
When it comes to global competition, according to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, “technological innovation has become the main battleground.” In 2015, Beijing announced its Made in China 2025 plan, a policy that aimed to transform China into a high-tech manufacturing powerhouse and reduce its dependence on foreign technology and imports. China has also introduced the Digital Silk Road, a program in which Chinese infrastructure investment is linked to recipient countries’ adoption of Chinese technologies, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. At the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in October, Xi announced a new AI governance program and reiterated his support for international cooperation on science and technology.
In some ways, the United States is mirroring China’s plans. Washington aims to accelerate innovation and stay as far ahead of Beijing as possible on artificial intelligence capabilities and advanced semiconductors. To spur domestic innovation and manufacturing, the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act committed $52.7 billion in U.S. semiconductor research, development, manufacturing, and workforce training. And in its tech policies abroad, the United States is taking what the government calls a “small yard, high fence” approach, using export controls and similar tools to limit the ability of Chinese companies to use foundational technologies such as AI chips and semiconductor equipment. In October, the United States upped the ante by closing gaps in a previous set of export controls, expanding licensing requirements, and subjecting additional Chinese companies to trade restrictions, tightening a policy that China had already referred to as a “technology blockade.”