The Grand Race For TechnoSecurity Leadership
In the dangerous race between the United States and China for dominance in the global security and technology community, the recent passage of the Science and CHIPS Act adds a powerful and much-needed tool to America's arsenal to revitalize technology security systems. But China continues to update and expand its tools, often in bigger and more comprehensive ways, such as launching very ambitious long-term science, technology and innovation plans in recent years. The scale, speed, and cost of escalating Washington and Beijing's efforts to strengthen their technology security agencies appeared to dwarf that between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 20th century. Because the difference between the United States and China in terms of economic and human resources and technological capabilities is much smaller than the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union.
No battle line is more clearly delineated than in the field of technological security. At the heart of the Sino-US rivalry are two distinct models of defense industry and technological innovation: a top-down Chinese state-driven approach and a US market-driven system. , tough and resourceful, they are adept at coping with rapid and disruptive change. It is important to accurately assess the two countries' technological security systems, including the innovation and deployment of military capabilities.
American and Chinese technology security systems are designed, configured, and managed differently. American techno-security firms are rooted in a deep-rooted anti-state philosophy that emphasizes limited government and an extended leadership role for the private sector, although the American government has sometimes wielded strong influence in the configuration of the techno-security ecosystem. In contrast, while pro-market forces have played an important role in China's economic development, its techno security system is largely state-based, with party-state dominance in ownership, control and governance. Since the late 20th century, the Chinese party-state has put its weight behind a targeted innovation agenda aimed at softening the United States' ability to defend its interests in the Western Pacific and bridging the rift between the United States. Union. China's defense technology is broader. In fact, according to the Deputy Secretary of the Air Force for Procurement, China is acquiring new weapons five times faster than the United States. As a result, the United States now faces a series of increasingly unfavorable military balances in the Western Pacific and beyond. To regain momentum in competing with China, the United States needs to demonstrate its unique approach to defense innovation by reviving public-private partnerships and deepening ties with allies.
Since the 1990s, China has made concerted efforts to grow from a battling technological laggard to become a global innovation leader. Defense innovation has been at the forefront of Beijing's efforts, and China has made impressive strides in the speed, scale and quality of production. At the beginning of the reform in the mid to late 1990s, China's science, technology, and defense innovation systems experienced a sharp decline and could only produce ancient weapons of foreign origin. In the second half of 2010, several pockets of excellence in defense innovation systems began producing advanced weapons such as stealth fighters and attack aircraft flying from the decks of large aircraft carriers. Currently, there are concerns that Beijing will overtake the West in cutting-edge innovations such as quantum and artificial intelligence.
Perceptions of threats, challenges and innovation
China's ruling elite has focused on competing with the United States for decades. Since the late 1990s, growing concerns about the external security environment, and in particular the threat posed by the United States, have fueled China's innovation efforts. Beijing has used Washington's perceived threat as a catalyst to deploy weapons and expand its technological security capabilities more broadly. Such perceptions have become more dire and pervasive under Xi Jinping, and have served to encourage and focus China's defense industry development and technological innovation.
In contrast, the United States has recently begun to focus on the challenges posed by China. While China has stepped up military innovation and modernization efforts since the early 2000s, the United States has viewed these efforts as a minor strategic threat because China's capabilities lag far behind the United States. Indeed, while Beijing is focused on Washington, the United States is preoccupied with the global fight against terrorism and threats from the Middle East after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
While the Bush and Obama administrations have expressed concern about China's growing military might, it wasn't until the Trump administration that documents such as the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy spoke openly about the challenges posed by China and competition between major powers. power. . empowerment is the first priority. The Biden administration views China as "our most important competitor and strategic enemy" in defense planning. While there is now general consensus about the need to fight the goal of becoming a high-tech superpower, action has lag behind the rhetoric.
Top-down approach to state-led innovation in China
Centralized top-down coordination has played a central role in most, if not all, of China's strategic technological achievements, from nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to manned space programs and high-performance computing. This top-down approach is guided by a central planning system based on direct administrative control by state agencies and parties and the use of fines to enforce compliance by businesses, research institutes and other organizational entities. Although the post-1978 reform period has seen some loosening and retreat from this widespread state control, the techno-security ecosystem remains largely state-owned, so that state planning, management, and intervention remain abundant.
The Chinese authorities have tried to stimulate innovation by strategically applying a hybrid approach to innovation and promoting local innovation. First, in the second half of the 2010s, China began to lay the groundwork for a solid and extensive military-civilian integration framework. Beijing seems hopeful that over the next decade it will be able to tap into a source of civic innovation as broad as the United States. Although the approach has not yet had a significant impact on Chinese innovation and the structural barriers to achieving this goal are high, Xi's active leadership in the civil-military fusion initiative means that the prospects for success are good.
Second, in another big long-term gamble, Beijing is increasingly focusing on self-sufficiency and expanding its technology adoption overseas with an emphasis on indigenous innovation at home. However, the main and intentional limitation of this model is that it can only handle a limited number of high priority strategic and defense projects. Access to and use of foreign technology and expertise will remain an important feature for the foreseeable future. Nationalist-technology reliance is a proven, low-risk, high-value development strategy that offers protection, while building genuine innovation capabilities is a long-term and high-risk endeavor.
Bottom-up approach to US market-driven innovation
While China has taken a top-down, state-led approach to defense innovation, the United States has traditionally succeeded with a market-driven bottom-up approach. The relationship between the state and the market developed during the Cold War and was a key factor in the success of America's techno security system compared to its counterpart in the Soviet Union. However, the traditional strengths of America's techno-security system have not worked well in the post-Cold War era, and particularly in the 21st century. Three factors in particular are worth considering.
First, mutually beneficial partnerships between the public and private sectors have always been a key driver of America's success. However, in the 21st century, public-private relations have become strained. The views of defense industry players are often met with skepticism, and the discourse of hostility between government and industry has increased in recent years. It threatens to turn this pillar of strength into a source of weakness. As Beijing pursues military-civilian integration, the US government often maintains control of the defense industry. While there has been much discussion in recent years about the need to embrace innovation, often this discussion is not matched by action. Complaints that the Defense Innovation Unit, created to accelerate new technology into the field, cut corners in recruiting and recruiting were enough to derail the unit director's appointment as undersecretary of defense for acquisitions and maintenance.
Two trends in particular have eroded public-private partnerships in the United States. First, the defense procurement system has become more rigid and risk-averting. This provides little incentive for companies to take the types of risks that are important for innovation. This system also prevents companies from immediately fixing problems with known or promising solutions. The system is so vast and complex that it defies reform. Furthermore, the Department of Defense is increasingly isolated from many of the most innovative and dynamic industries in the economy. Unsurprisingly, according to Mike Griffin, former assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering, the Department of Defense took 16 years to bring the idea into operational capability, while China claims it sometimes does so in less than seven squares. years, although an analysis of carefully selected Chinese programs shows that this is not the case.
Second, American technology security companies are struggling to make their voices heard in innovation leadership as they are losing their dominant position as a major source of investment in research and development. In the early 2020s, the US Department of Defense accounted for only 3.6% of global research and development spending, down from 36% at its peak in 1960.
In addition, the Pentagon has gone from an early adopter of technology to a thriving investor in technology research. This means that many technologies originate in civilian environments and are then and often too late to be adapted for defense and dual-use applications. While cost-effective and providing access to a wider range of innovations, America's technological security systems run the risk of becoming followers rather than leaders if the commercial sector is unwilling to act to fill gaps in certain defense areas. or unable to attend.
If this trend continues, US technology security systems could further marginalize their influence and place in US innovation systems. This is already happening in the corporate sector. During the second half of 2010, the top five US technology companies, including Google, Amazon and Apple, spent more money each year on R&D than the top five US defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. . . This growing imbalance in public-private relations can lead companies to decide that doing business with technology security is not profitable enough and prompt them to focus on more lucrative commercial markets, both nationally and internationally, including including China. The revitalization of public-private relations will be critical to any long-term US effort to compete credibly with China.
Cooperation with global partners is increasingly needed
As the world's leading security technology power, the United States has become a leading exporter of advanced technology, knowledge and industrial products, both military and civilian. Having a comprehensive world-class science and technology base, particularly in defense technology, means that the United States has traditionally had little appetite for foreign technology or expertise. This sense of industrial and technological superiority led to a fierce and enduring technological ideology and attitude in which the United States saw itself as superior to the rest of the world.
But the global technological landscape has changed rapidly in the 21st century with the emergence of a wide variety of new technologies, many of which have multiple defense and use applications. With the overall declining share of global investment in research and development, the United States is finding it increasingly difficult and expensive to keep up with technological advances in all key areas, making cooperation with foreign partners more difficult, more attractive, and more necessary. This cooperation takes place in areas such as 5G, quantum computing and communications, areas where China is very active and striving for global leadership. But technonationalist dominance has long been so deeply entrenched in the institutional culture of America's tech security establishment that a fundamental shift to a more cooperative technoglobalist approach is likely to face deep resistance and take time to implement effectively. .
Efforts have been made over time to lay the groundwork for a more holistic approach to technology security. The establishment of a security agreement known as AUKUS (Australia, UK and USA) in 2021 – which focuses on forward defense and dual-use capability – is the latest and most promising opportunity for the emergence of techno-globalists America. . -Security mode.
One area where the United States could seek greater cooperation with foreign allies is controlling the proliferation of sensitive technology. In the 20th century, in response to technological challenges from the Soviet Union and Japan, the United States established a number of institutional frameworks to control the flow of technology and expertise to these countries, including the multilateral export control coordination committee. These regimes have worked effectively in their respective fields, but the unified civil-military challenges posed by China forced the US administration to develop a whole-of-government approach that is more robust than the current backward and ad hoc internal processes. forced to exist.
The United States has overhauled this old regime through gradual reforms such as the 2018 Foreign Investment Risk Modernization Act and a revised export control regime. However, there are still large gaps in the multi-use and strategically evolving high-tech field that requires new, fully dedicated institutional mechanisms that can respond to and manage this area more effectively.
It closes
In the early 2020s, America's technological security systems are still stronger and more innovative than their Chinese counterparts. However, this advantage is gradually being eroded by the institutional sclerosis of the United States, large-scale global technological change and the pace of intensive technological security development in China. Revitalizing key components of the US technology security system, particularly public-private partnerships and engagement with global partners, will enable the United States to maintain its long-term global leadership advantage, even as the gap with China will remain. The United States needs to undertake more transformative reforms to stay ahead. Much will also depend on how seriously the United States takes China's long-term technological security challenges to its own national security and global leadership role, given the multitude of competing domestic and international demands.
For China, a review of the security status of technology under Xi's leadership is gradually narrowing the gap with the United States, but a successful transition to parity and even leadership will require greater structural change. More effective coordination between state and market mechanisms will be essential. Allowing hybridization, and moreover civil-military integration, to be fully implemented would also be a necessary step. Improving the centralized top-down coordination model will be critical in the race to develop emerging nuclear technology, as early active state intervention can play a more effective and decisive role than bottom-up market support. The technological security state of China must overcome these fundamental shortcomings if it is to present a real challenge to the United States for long-term global leadership in technology security.
Tai Ming Cheung is director of the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego and a professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. Thomas G. Mahnken is President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Senior Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Photo by US Navy Class 1 Mass Communications Specialist Brandon Woods