Contending Visions for Digital Connectivity: US-China Technological Competition

• In Event: The US-China Rivalry

Abstract

Democratic and authoritarian regimes have both increasingly sought to intervene in international and domestic markets to benefit their national security (Drezner, Farrell, and Newman, 2021) with some scholars referring to this as the “new economic statecraft” (Aggarwal and Reddie, 2023). This trend is especially prominent in the high-technology sector with the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) locked into strategic competition over artificial intelligence, quantum, 5G/6G, semiconductors, and the enabling technologies related to each of these emerging fields (Herlevi and Rodgers, 2023).

The PRC outlined its connectivity vision through the Digital Silk Road, which creates the backbone for advanced communications (5G, 6G) and relies on integrated circuit design for advanced semiconductors, advanced optical communications, and various other related technologies. Under this purview, the PRC is building connectivity with the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and the Global South. For China, countries that signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) needed critical infrastructure to expand connectivity and telecommunications become a major component of that push.

Simultaneously, the United States is lining up “like-minded allies” and partners in the European Union and in Asia to prevent China from controlling that digital architecture. The United States has raised concerns with allies and partners about the trustworthiness of PRC built and operated networks and undertaken policies meant to limit China’s digital expansion, such as the Clean Network initiative, which enhances the ability of the US to provide digital services from specific trusted vendors. US efforts to economically counter China generally fall under the US governments “de-risking” strategy but include many distinct layers of activity from across the US government interagency.

This paper provides an update on the evolution of the PRC’s Digital Silk Road and describes the status of China’s progress in relevant digital technology areas. The paper then describes the steps the United States has taken to limit China’s access to critical digital technologies, networks, and infrastructure as part of its “strategic competition” with and de-risking from China. We then analyze how contending US-China visions for the digital future raise important questions about access, inequality (across countries, regions, and the globe), data privacy, and data ownership and control. US-China technology competition has data and privacy implications far beyond the impacts for each country’s citizens and risks future fragmentation of international telecommunications networks and management of the global commons.

References

Aggarwal, Vinod K., and Andrew W. Reddie. “Searching for Global Equilibrium: How New Economic Statecraft Undermines International Institutions.” Asia and the Global Economy, December 27, 2023, 100076. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aglobe.2023.100076.

Drezner, Daniel W., Henry Farrell, and Abraham L. Newman, eds. The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2021.

Herlevi, April A., and Rose Rodgers (Tenyotkin). “China’s Technology Acquisition for Military Innovation: Spectrum of Legality in Strategic Competition.” Asian Security 19, no. 2 (May 4, 2023): 169–85. https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2023.2241396.

Author

• April A Herlevi, CNA Corporation