Protecting U.S. Technological Advantage (2022) / Chapter Skim
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4 The Competitive Challenge Posed by China
4 The Competitive Challenge Posed by China
Pages 67-82
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From page 67... ...
professionals across borders augment countries' R&D expenditures by ensuring the rapid dissemination of new ideas and information. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 9.5 calls on nations to "enhance scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities of industrial sectors in all countries, in particular developing countries, including, by 2030, encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers per 1 million people and public and private research and development spending." Scientific research and technology development are worldwide endeavors that have widespread benefits even as they improve the economic conditions and military strength of particular countries.
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From page 68... ...
, it looks not just at R&D funding but also at China's efforts to acquire technologies developed elsewhere, attract top talent, and establish its supremacy in both targeted areas of science and technology and in the overall strength of its science and technology system. Discussed as well are the large numbers of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who come to the United States to study science and engineering and do scientific research, many of whom remain in the United States to work.
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From page 69... ...
While the Japanese government played an active role in Japan's competitive position, including subsidizing its domestic industries and seeking to acquire technology from abroad, it adhered to international norms on economic, legal, and trade matters. Although the United States and China are the two largest funders of R&D in the world today, aspects of the two countries' approaches to supporting science and technology differ substantially.
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From page 70... ...
The Chinese government has subsidized domestic industries, has blocked foreign investment in Chinese companies to give those companies an advantage in foreign competition, and engages in industrial espionage and cybertheft to acquire technology. When foreign investment in Chinese companies is allowed, technology transfer is often a condition of building, owning, or operating facilities in China.
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From page 71... ...
China has sought to portray democratic countries as failing experiments in governance while touting and advancing its own achievements and worldview. As noted previously, a distinguishing feature of China's approach to gaining market leadership over the West has been its use of detailed strategies outlining the specific technology areas in which it seeks to attain leadership; outlined as well are the steps it is taking to that end.
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From page 72... ...
Following this conference, the Key Laboratory of Synthetic Biology was launched in 2008, marking the Chinese government's first official foray into synthetic biology. Established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the laboratory sought to design functional biological parts that could produce biomaterials and bioenergy through the modification and synthesis of biological systems.
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From page 73... ...
This facility houses numerous synthetic biology research centers, including the Center for Quantitative Synthetic Biology, the Center for Synthetic Genomics, the Center for Synthetic Biochemistry, the Center for Synthetic Microbiome, the Center for Genome Engineering and Therapy, the Center for Synthetic Immunology, the Materials Synthetic Biology Center, and the Center for Cell and Gene Circuit Design. The main building, completed in January 2021, serves as an advanced platform for the design and fabrication of biological systems (Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, n.d.)
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From page 74... ...
was designed to provide a unified platform for biological big data sharing and application services to the research community.3 Using big data and cloud computing technologies, CNGBdb has integrated large amounts of internal and external molecular information, and has correlated living sources, biological samples, and bioinformatics data to enable biological data to be traced throughout the life cycle. In collaboration with Australia's Macquarie University and Harvard University, CNGB also has a synthetic biology platform focused on metabolic engineering and the development of high-density DNA storage technology (GenomeWeb, 2018)
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CHINA'S ACTIVITIES IN MICROELECTRONICS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND QUANTUM COMPUTING Less in-depth examinations of the other three case studies considered in Chapter 2 similarly reveal the efforts China is making to gain leadership in microelectronics, AI, and quantum computing. In contrast to China's directed and coordinated planning to achieve positions of technological leadership, the United States generally has not developed a strategic policy for advancing innovation and commercialization of these technologies.
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From page 76... ...
. By 2025, according to the plan, "China will achieve major breakthroughs in basic theories for AI, such that some technologies and applications achieve a world-leading level and AI becomes the main driving force for China's industrial upgrading and economic transformation" (China State Council, 2017)
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From page 77... ...
Quantum Computing In 2016, China launched a "megaproject" aimed at making breakthroughs in quantum computing; its funding for quantum information sciences now greatly exceeds that of the United States (Graham et al., 2021)
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From page 78... ...
dominance in this regard reflects the country's historical attractiveness as a place to learn and do science. International Students in STEM Fields As noted in Chapter 3, the number of international graduate students in U.S.
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From page 79... ...
Undergraduate and graduate students continue to come to the United States, but many of these students study on temporary visas and must return to their home countries 6–9 months after receiving their degrees. In addition, a long tradition of postdoctoral fellows in scientific disciplines coming from Europe to
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From page 80... ...
. Recent immigration reforms, such as the expansion of optional practical training, have allowed foreign students to work longer in the United States after completing their degrees, but the number of temporary work visas is capped, even in fields in which workers are in high demand.
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The U.S. federal laboratory system also attracts some of the top scientific and technical talent both nationally and globally, and develops and maintains unique scientific resources not found elsewhere, from high-performance computers to specialized fabrication facilities.
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IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA'S ACTIONS FOR THE PROTECTION OF U.S. INTERESTS The competitive challenge China poses to the United States is unprecedented.
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