Managing U.S.-China Technological Decoupling

Abstract

“Technological decoupling” has become a key factor that affects China-U.S. relations. The United States has been trying to cut its ties with China in the field of emerging technologies in an attempt to win the bilateral strategic competition. Compared with traditional high technologies, emerging technologies have lots of uncertain implications, and the security problems brought by these technologies have made the United States fall into the dilemma of “insecurity.” As a result, successive U.S. administrations view “decoupling” as both a strategic move to address challenges from emerging technologies and a means to suppress China’s development. Taken together, national security, ideology, and competition in the digital industry are distinct motivations behind the U.S. technological decoupling with China. Toward this end, the United States has formulated whole-of-government and whole-of-society measures, aiming at decoupling through a combination of domestic and foreign policy tools. As the target of technological decoupling, China holds the belief that the U.S. policy is a strategic misjudgment which is incompatible with the development trends of emerging technologies. Instead, China and the United States should strengthen their collaboration at levels of technology, industry, security, and ideology to reduce the risk of miscalculation and enhance ties in emerging technologies.