USChina TechnoNationalism And The Decoupling Of Innovation
The hybrid cold war between the US and China is spreading to countries once thought to be decoupled from geopolitics.
In the technology field, there has been a steady development of real and tough technology export controls, followed by restrictions on data access and use, and more recently, new controls have emerged that will impede the free movement and development of human capital.
All of these restrictions will accelerate the fragmentation of China's supply chains, digital platforms and knowledge networks. But recent human resource constraints – particularly in relation to collaborative and knowledge-intensive activities – will change the way global universities and innovation hubs operate.
The underlying force behind all of this is techno-nationalism: a mercantilist attitude that combines a nation's technological prowess and enterprise with concerns about national security, economic prosperity, and social stability.
Techno-nationalism will affect the future science and innovation landscape in three ways.
First, relevant institutions will be separated from blacklisted Chinese universities and academic programs.
Second, a growing web of export controls and restrictions will increase pressure on institutions to comply with increasingly stringent regulations.
Third, new regulatory frameworks and indicators for good governance will emerge in the global science and innovation scene.
It's a necessary response to Beijing's decades of innovation mercantilism and the role China's state apparatus plays in systematically directing strategic intellectual property, technology and human resources to the world's best universities.
This article further examines these issues by describing how techno-nationalism will affect Sino-US cooperation in technology development and technology in general.
Human resources as a strategic asset
Talent pools, educational networks, research and development (R&D) institutes, and innovation networks have become important strategic assets in the US-China hybrid Cold War.
A microcosm of this competitive landscape occurred in the semiconductor sector, where two Chinese government-backed companies, Guanxin Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (QXIC) and Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (HSMC), the world's leading contract chipmaker, took advantage of attractive financial incentives offered by funded by government subsidies to hire 100 engineers from Taiwan's TSMC. The Made in China 2025 initiative alone is estimated to have attracted around 3,000 Taiwanese engineers to the mainland.
The effort reflects Beijing's urgent need to improve its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities -- an area where companies from the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are lagging behind.
The Taiwanese government, meanwhile, is looking at ways to subsidize local firms' wages to match the lucrative packages being offered by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and imposes non-compete obligations on Taiwanese engineers who transfer to mainland firms.
The Taiwanese government has stepped up surveillance of IP transmissions and enforcement efforts, including monitoring engineers at a strategic Taiwanese semiconductor company where full-time national security officials occupy office space.
Academic institutions are zero zero
Techno-nationalism will affect most of the world's leading universities and research institutes, most of which are based in the United States, Europe and other liberal democracies. Beijing has made it a priority to maximize its access to these institutions so that it has access to the world's best scientists, R&D networks and innovation communities.
As a result, politicians are taking steps to make it more difficult for opponents to benefit from the opening of the education system, while trying to prevent techno-nationalist collateral damage in the human resources pipeline. has a positive effect.
Sharing the knowledge network
In June 2020, the United States blacklisted several top universities in China, including the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), billed as "China's MIT." The impact of limited liability company status was immediate: HIT faculty and students no longer had access to critical US-made research and simulation software, such as MATLAB, which is widely used in R&D programs around the world.
Further consequences were the termination of the exchange program between HIT and the University of Arizona and the University of California, Berkeley. More broadly, HIT's placement on the list of banned institutions places other Chinese academic institutions as part of a broader research network funded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). This combination of "civilian-military" activities at Chinese academic institutions raises the possibility that more will be added to Washington's list of banned institutions.
As one of China's leading academic institutions, Tsinghua University plays a central role in China's state-sponsored semiconductor research and collaboration with Chinese state-owned companies. Exposure to US sanctions will have immediate consequences for a number of the world's top universities, many of which have collaborative and exchange partnerships with Tsinghua.
Meanwhile, India, the world's largest democracy, looks to capitalize on the US-China divide by investing in US-India educational ties. So while the number of Chinese STEM researchers and students in the US may decline, India's techno-nationalist vision envisions attracting US universities to India, which will have the effect of creating more local human capital and offsetting bilateral innovation. Pipeline with the US
Beijing's Strategic Relationships with Global Universities
China's Thousand Talents program is aimed at top academics and other professionals from abroad. Provides significant financial support to move to China to conduct research in high-tech and future technology industries and participate in key Chinese science programs to support China's high-tech development plans such as Made in China 2025. Keys to research and development, strategic intellectual property and quick access to talent pools.
As such, many Chinese viewers have linked the Thousand Talents program to Beijing's alleged hybrid intellectual property procurement efforts that involve the use of gifts, fraud, coercion and outright theft.
These doubts are exacerbated by China's national intelligence law, which requires Chinese citizens and organizations to provide assistance to state security and intelligence agencies upon request. Whether justified or not, Chinese scholars and students working and studying at foreign universities are therefore increasingly under suspicion.
In January 2020, Charles Lieber, a Harvard University nanoscientist and former chair of the departments of chemistry and chemical biology, was arrested on charges of failing to disclose his ties to China's Thousand Talents program.
Also during the Lieber case, Chinese graduate student Yanqing Ye was arrested for failing to disclose that he was a PLA lieutenant when he received a nonimmigrant visa to study at Boston University's physics department. , Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. They were accused of spying for the PLA. Equipment confiscated from him shows that he accessed US military websites, researched US military projects, and gathered information about the PLA for two US citizens who federal documents say are experts in robotics and computer science.
Another similar case highlights the challenges academic institutions and government officials face in adapting to the US-China Cold Technology War.
More broadly, increasing calls for Western universities to ban Chinese Confucius Institutes are fueling discrimination, as Beijing claims they are used to influence campaigns and persecute Chinese students abroad.
Techno-nationalist export controls and restrictions
Going forward, US export controls will continue to disrupt the world's leading academic institutions. They must adhere to a variety of evolving compliance rules and standards, such as:
- export control of software, digital networks, computer code and other intellectual property;
- Inclusion of scientific partners (foreign scientific institutions) in the list of restricted institutions;
- Blacklisting of individuals (academics and students of target countries and institutions);
- enrollment rates and limits for foreign students based on citizenship;
- Reduction or prohibition of funding for foreign institutions.
Failure to comply with these rules could see universities and research institutes being fined and penalized on a scale previously reserved for oil companies and big banks.
Many of these rules contradict what an open and democratic learning environment should represent. But China's decades-long techno-nationalist agenda and system of innovation mercantilism have placed Beijing in a disruptive role. In many ways, the CCP's challenge to the global academic community presents the same dilemma that the country-centric economic model presents to the world's multilateral organizations: existing rules and norms are designed to circumvent values of openness and transparency. Reciprocity. to avoid adapting to predatory behavior.
The next phase of techno-nationalism will create tensions between government policies and the operational practices of open academic environments in the US, Europe and beyond.
Therefore, to remain a dynamic place of learning, these institutions must begin to implement risk management measures that truly address the complexities of techno-nationalism and the US-China technology race.
New regulatory framework
The academic community must work with policymakers and law enforcement to address the challenges of US-Chinese technonationalism. This includes the implementation of regulatory frameworks and management practices that can transform the academic community into a heavily regulated industry in the service sector.
Third-party conflicts of interest checks and due diligence practices similar to Know Your Customer (KYC) standards in the banking industry are becoming a must. This exam is for faculty and doctoral students pursuing applied and specialized research.
Academic and research institutions will see stricter "research integrity" standards and penalties for violators (including faculty, students and all academic institutions) if they fail to disclose affiliations with Chinese institutions and programs.
Standards of full disclosure and transparency also apply, and these standards are audited and enforced by independent or certified third parties between joint and collaborating academic institutions.
As the Cold Technology War between the US and China intensifies, academic and research institutions around the world must learn to adapt. Given the choice between implementing complex and increasingly risky compliance processes in many cases, and simply exiting the Chinese partnership, many institutions will choose the latter.
Alex Capri is a Research Fellow of the Hinrich Foundation and a Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore Business School and Lecturer at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. This article is based on Capri's longer report for the Hinrich Foundation, "Techo-Nationalism and the US-China Technological Innovation Race."
