An e-book on how to lose the race for technological pre-eminence
This is a subject I started to think a lot about while working at Huawei Technologies in Shenzhen, which is here:
As the attentive reader, will notice, Shenzhen is right next to Hong Kong, which, depending on your perspective, is not a coincidence, or is rather a historical coincidence of some importance.
Technological decoupling from China is what some are suggesting needs to happen in order to maintain the technological, military and ultimately economic pre-eminence of the United States. One of the people suggesting that is John Bolton, seen here proposing to knock ten floors off the very building he is sitting in, namely the United Nations.
I have written about this at some length already, namely with Trends Research and Advisory in Abu Dhabi, who published an 8000 word paper I did on this topic as an e-book, which you can view in the flipbook window below and otherwise order a copy of here.
I have also created a short summary slide-show presentation that explains – on the basis of 5 reasons – why efforts to decouple the United States and China from one another technologically will ultimately fail to further the underlying objective of maintaining and perpetuating U.S. technological supremacy over China.
I have also published an opinion piece on this topic in the South China Morning Post, in which I argued that using technological decoupling to try and contain or punish China would likewise ultimately fail.
Ultimately, as the relationship between China and the United States becomes increasingly complex and they enter a new and more ambigious phase in which they compete aggresively in some areas and cooperate wearily in others, they will need to recalibrate how intertwined and interdependent their economies are allowed to remain.
As David Golding has written in a very insightful piece of analysis in the Asia Times, in April 2020, some degree of unbundling is likely and probably even desirable in strategic sectors such as electronic components intended for use in military applications. But for the most part, there is still plenty of upside in many areas of technology if the U.S. and China either compete or cooperate.