US Technological Competition with China: The Military, Industrial and Digital Network Dimensions

Abstract

The US approach toward China shifted from engagement to competition, and it has coincided with the near-simultaneous breakthrough of advanced technologies in a whole host of areas ranging from artificial intelligence to synthetic biology. As a result, the United States is competing with China to apply these advanced technologies for military and industrial purposes, and, at the same time, competing in third countries over dominance in digital network infrastructure. The current article will illustrate Chinese efforts and US countermeasures that are unfolding in the form of military technological competition, industrial technological competition, and the digital network competition in order to argue that the US shift toward competition is not only about Chinese discriminatory and unreasonable acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer and cyber intrusions, but a contest for supremacy over the next generation of military, economic and information/data dominance that could impact the relative legitimacy of political and socio-economic system of the two states.