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11. The Sources of China’s Innovativeness: Why China’s “Unstoppable” Innovation Powerhouse Might Falter

Author:
Tim Rühlig
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Western governments appear to fear that China is an ­innovation power­house on an almost unstoppable path to dominating ­future technologies. This is quite a turnaround. Only a few years ago, Western policies were crafted on the assumption that China was a copycat incapable of innovation. A focus on Intellectual Property theft as the Chinese “sin” that drove China’s technological development led many in the West to miss what I have identified as the “Five Virtues” that have made China the innovation powerhouse it is today. China’s future success is not ­in­evitable, however, but dependent on a delicate policy ecosystem.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Intellectual Property/Copyright, Innovation, and Geoeconomics
Political Geography:
China and Asia

12. A Reliable Global Cyber Power: Cyberspace and Germany’s National Security Strategy

Author:
Valentin Weber
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Germany’s major allies have declared their roles in shaping cyberspace. The United States sees itself as a democratic, values-driven cyber power ready to impose substantial costs on adversaries engaged in nefarious conduct. The United Kingdom strives to be a responsible cyber power that eschews reckless behavior. France aims to operate as a stabilizing power that counters a destructive Russia and other malicious actors. But what kind of cyber power is Germany to be? As it draws up its first national security strategy, the country can rectify its lack of vision and narrative for its domestic and international cyberspace efforts. This policy brief proposes that Germany espouse a sober focus on reliability that links its cyberspace strategy to those of its allies, thereby providing a vital anchor for Western cybersecurity. To do this, Germany should:
Topic:
National Security, Science and Technology, Strategic Stability, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, and Germany

13. Germany’s Global Technology Diplomacy Strengthening Technology Alliances, Partnerships, and Norms-Setting Institutions

Author:
David Hagebölling and Tyson Barker
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
The fusion of technological, geopolitical, and ideological ambitions is straining internet governance discourses, cyber norms diplomacy, technical standard-setting, and the global connectivity infrastructure. The German government has made support for global, open, and secure digital connectivity a centerpiece of its foreign policy. However, it has yet to make the shaping of a corresponding international technology agenda a strategic policy priority. To shape a global technology order that reflects Germany’s interests as a high-tech industrial economy and democratic society, the government should focus on realizing synergies with EU international digital policy, strengthening coordination with like-minded partners, and engaging with the Global South on an inclusive and democratic ­global digital agenda.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Governance, Partnerships, Geopolitics, Norms, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

14. Technology and Industrial Policy in an Age of Systemic Competition: Safeguarding Germany’s Technology Stack and Innovation Industrial Strength

Author:
David Hagebölling and Tyson Barker
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
As one of the world’s most globalized economies, Germany is confronting a challenging international environment characterized by ag-gressive subsidies, a global race for control of key technologies such as advanced chips, and vulnerable supply chains for critical compo-nents. Increased energy costs – induced by Russia’s war on Ukraine – are also straining Germany’s industrial model. Germany’s industrial economy is simultaneously undergoing a fundamental transformation from precision-based engineering to sys-tems-based manufactured products. With this shift, a competitive digital technology stack is becoming a key repository for future industri-al competitiveness. Yet, the country struggles to capture value in fast-growing markets like that for cloud and edge infrastructure. It also faces risks from its exposure to untrustworthy technology vendors and potential geopolitical disruptions to fragile hardware supply chains. The German government is consequently drawing the contours of a new technology-industrial policy. This effort, however, suffers from uneven implementation and the complexities of eff ectively coordinating subnational (across the Länder) and supranational (across the EU) industrial policy. To effectively preserve its economic competitiveness, the German government should conduct a systematic assessment of the country’s strengths and vulnerabilities in critical technology, increase the cohesiveness between federal and state government initiatives, and work internationally – within the EU and with like-minded partners beyond – to leverage comparative advantages.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, Science and Technology, Innovation, and Competition
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

15. Germany’s Economic Security and Technology: Optimizing Export Control, Investment Screening and Market Access Instruments

Author:
Tyson Barker and David Hagebölling
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Technological development and increasingly fraught US-China competition have geopolitical consequences for technology access. The erosion of post-Cold War multilateral dual-use technology export control regimes, such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, and investment and other control frameworks have led to na-tional, EU, and ad hoc measures, such as the restrictions on Russian semiconductor access following the invasion of Ukraine. The German government must integrate technology access and control instruments – export controls, FDI screening, critical infrastructure access, research protection, and outbound investment– in its Digital Strategy and National Security Strategy. The former currently neglects critical technology access and control; the latter must address it comprehensively. German – and EU – dual-use export and FDI screening reforms have been updated and are now in place. Capacity building and alignment with EU and NATO partners now deserves greater attention. Measures could include more robust, institutionalized information-sharing and consultations on dual-use technology export, import, investment, and research controls in a Multilateral Technology Control Committee born out of the G7 or TTC. The commit-tee should also establish the capacity to deny end-user access to German technology through its own Foreign-Direct Product Rules and Entity List.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Science and Technology, Investment, and Exports
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Asia, North America, and United States of America

16. A German Digital Grand Strategy: Integrating Digital Technology, Economic Competitiveness, and National Security in Times of Geopolitical Change

Author:
Tyson Barker and David Hagebölling
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
This report systematically outlines the state of play in digital policy and Berlin’s current policy approach. It provides 48 recommendations for strengthening Germany’s efforts to build a confident, high-performing European digital economy embedded in an open, democratic, and rules-based digital order.
Topic:
Economics, National Security, Science and Technology, Geopolitics, Grand Strategy, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

17. Germany’s Role in Europe’s Digital Regulatory Power: Shaping the Global Technology Rule Book in the Service of Europe

Author:
David Hagebölling and Tyson Barker
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Four elements help to map the strengths and, at times, the limits of German power in digital rule-making. First, Germany anticipates EU ­digital regulation and attempts to establish facts on the ground. Second, Germany has outsized influence in the formal stages of EU digital regulatory policy­making. Third, the EU, in turn, provides ­Germany with a launch pad for influencing worldwide regulatory norms. Fourth, a belated reawakening of the capacity of the German private sector and affiliated technical standard bodies to influence global technical standards is occurring. Germany, as an EU member state, is engaging in three significant areas of data governance and cybersecurity: digital identities and open data, lawful access to electronic messaging systems, and rules for sovereign cloud usage. Germany’s largely successful role as a key incubator for the EU’s regulatory approach to ­digital technology and, therefore, as a proponent of the “Brussels Effect” of influencing global markets is not widely appreciated or understood at home. The lag among regulations, tech-nology, and international context is evident in areas such as data protection, content moderation, and market power of online platforms. Even meaningful regulatory debates on quantum, the metaverse (AR/VR), and 6G have yet to arise in Germany. Germany must change its approach to digital regulation to more accurately reflect the dynamic, general-purpose nature of emerging digital technologies against an increasingly fraught international landscape in which technological rules are a dimension of geopolitical power. This includes more fully addressing political trade-offs associated with digital regulation choices, expanding reviews and sunset clauses in digi-tal regulation to encourage flexibility, and making greater use of multi-stakeholder regulatory approaches that incorporate civil society, companies, and other non-state actors. Germany must also increase the engagement of its foreign policy and national security communi-ties in EU technology diplomacy and in global regulation enforcement.
Topic:
Science and Technology, European Union, Regulation, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

18. The Geopolitics of Digital Technology Innovation: Assessing Strengths and Challenges of Germany’s Innovation Ecosystem

Author:
Tyson Barker and David Hagebölling
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
The COVID-era public and private investment influx into Germany’s digital technology R&D is reversing amid inflation, fiscal consolidation, and geopolitical pressures coming from the Zeitenwende. Germany’s future in an EU that is among the top-tier technology powers requires a profound and rapid transition of the country’s R&D strengths into data-intensive, systems-centric areas of IoT and deep technology that are linked to the domestic manufacturing base. New policy approaches in three areas – money, markets, and minds – are needed. New technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced material science, biotech, and quantum computing tend to have broad general-purpose applications. But uncoordinated funding vehicles, universities’ civil clauses, and restrictive visa and onboarding guidelines for skilled foreign workers slow innovation in these sectors and hamper German techno-geopolitical competitiveness. In the mid-term, Germany could look at a scheme to bundle the Future Fund together with new institutional investment in a sort of embryonic German Sovereign Wealth Fund, with a proportion of funding specifically geared toward strategically important VC endeavors.
Topic:
Science and Technology, European Union, Geopolitics, Innovation, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
Europe and Germany

19. What If the EU Did Not Share Data to Protect Its Critical Infrastructure?

Author:
Päivi Mattila-Wiro and Isto Mattila
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
This scenario shows what could happen if the EU fails to establish an information exchange environment among its critical infrastructure (CI) entities. In 2030, only a few services related to the EU’s CI remain local and confined to a single domain. Most are heavily interconnected – and thus increasingly subject to hybrid attacks. Because the EU still provides no common guidelines to record and share information about such attacks, CI operators cannot analyze threats, recognize EU-wide patterns, or identify adversaries. Two EU directives from the early 2020s recognized this gap but did not provide the tools to address it.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Infrastructure, European Union, and Data
Political Geography:
Europe

20. Sea Change for Europe’s Security Order: Three Future Scenarios

Author:
Christian Mölling, Tyson Barker, David Hagebölling, Afra Herr, and Kai Kornhuber
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
The war of aggression that Russia launched against Ukraine in February has destroyed the European security order. The German government has defined this moment as a sea change (Zeitenwende) for its foreign and security policy. It still must envisage and shape a new order. Key factors are whether Europe will be united in strategic policy areas, and how Russia will position itself.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Science and Technology, European Union, and Geoeconomics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe