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161. Biotechnology and Security Threats: National Responses and Prospects for International Cooperation

Author:
Hanzhi Yu and Yang Xue
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
Cutting-edge biotechnology, mainly consisting of gene editing, gene drives and gene synthesis, is developing and changing rapidly. It acts as a double-edged sword, bringing benefits to human development in many fields, such as medical treatment and agriculture, while also posing serious threats to biological security, human existence and development. For example, the case of He Jiankui, a young scholar from the Southern University of Science and Technology of China who created gene-edited babies, triggered a global controversy and debate on biosafety in the winter of 2018. This paper argues that the problems China faces do not only exist in China — they are in fact common problems faced by all countries in the world. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is paying close attention to global health governance and biosafety issues. There is a window of opportunity for global collaboration to deal with biosecurity threats.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, and Biotechnology
Political Geography:
China and Asia

162. China’s Techno-Industrial Development: A Case Study of the Semiconductor Industry

Author:
Alex He
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
This paper reviews the strategies and plans, policy-making institutions, process and problems in China’s techno-industrial development. Although it has made noticeable progress in some areas in the past two decades, China still lags behind in most core technology and advanced manufacturing fields, such as high-end chips. There have been several real breakthroughs in the semiconductor sector by private companies such as HiSilicon and rapid advancement in frontier technologies — artificial intelligence, fifth-generation wireless communication network technology, big data, blockchain and the Internet of Things — by private companies such as Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu; however, state-sponsored technological innovation and breakthroughs have been crippled by the existing problems in China’s science and technology research system and a campaign-style catch-up strategy that rewards bureaucrats on short-term goals, as well as by weak links between academic research and industry and a swing between the market-oriented approach for technology acquisitions and indigenous innovation for technology breakthroughs. A case study of China’s semiconductor industry demonstrates both the problems and progress in China’s techno-industrial development, as well as the implications for the country's prospects of evolving into a technological powerhouse.
Topic:
Development, Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Industry, and 5G
Political Geography:
China and Asia

163. China's Civil Nuclear Sector: Plowshares to Swords?

Author:
Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
Although much has been said about the fusion of China’s civilian and military sectors, no detailed, unclassified analysis has been done of how Beijing’s “peaceful” nuclear efforts might be exploited to make more nuclear warheads. Even the U.S. Department of Energy’s own explanations of the export restrictions it imposed on “advanced” nuclear exports to China failed to discuss this. This volume is dedicated to clarifying just what the connection could be. Much of it focuses on China’s advanced fast breeder reactor program and its related plutonium recycling efforts. As explained in this volume’s first chapter, “How Many Nuclear Warheads China Might Acquire by 2030,” the least burdensome way for China to achieve nuclear weapons parity with the United States is simply to use the weaponsgrade plutonium that its planned “peaceful” fast breeder reactor and reprocessing programs will produce to make primaries for the two-stage thermonuclear weapons designs they already have perfected. By exploiting this weapons plutonium and the highly enriched uranium and tritium that China can easily access or make, Beijing by 2030 could conservatively assemble an arsenal of 1,270 warheads (nearly as many as the US currently has deployed on its intercontinental missiles).
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, Nonproliferation, Missile Defense, Denuclearization, and Nuclear Energy
Political Geography:
United States and China

164. New Frontiers for Security Cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo

Author:
Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
With a new Democratic administration, Washington is almost certain to moderate its demands that Japan and South Korea pay more for American forces on their soil. This should ease tensions with Seoul to Tokyo. To strengthen security relations with Japan and South Korea, though, more will be required. Rather than simply increase their conventional military deployments, Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo will need to collaborate in new ways to enhance allied security. This will entail working more closely on new military frontiers, such as enhancing allied command of outer and cyber space as well as in underwater warfare. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo will also want to carve out new functional areas of cooperation to make existing energy sources more secure, communications more reliable, data sharing easier and safer, and allied economic assistance to developing nations in strategic zones more effective. Enhanced collaboration in each of these areas has begun but is not yet locked in or fully institutionalized. It should be. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo need one another to deal with China and North Korea. Yet, how each currently strategically views Beijing and Pyongyang differs. Nor is America’s preferred military approach to deterring Chinese and North Korean adventurism — by preventing Beijing and Pyongyang from projecting military strikes against their neighbors — all that easy to achieve. Adding new, more tractable items to America’s Asian security alliance agenda won’t immediately eliminate these misalignments. But it will strengthen the security ties they have as liberal democracies — bonds Beijing and Pyongyang are straining to fray.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, International Security, Military Affairs, Cyberspace, and Nuclear Energy
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, and South Korea

165. Competition for High Politics in Cyberspace: Technological Conflicts Between China and the USA

Author:
Karina Veronica Val Sanchez and Nezir Akyeşilmen
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
This paper highlighted the use of cyberspace as a conflict zone by the US and China, focusing on competition in various technological spheres, including cyberespionage, military technology, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The main purpose of this study was to depict how great powers manipulate the cyber domain for their high political objectives through US-China rivalry. The research has been carried out mainly via literature review, discourse analysis, and relevant statistics. Consistent with previous literature and global public perception, the outcome has shown that both states are using cyberspace as a new domain for completion in trade, technology, and military purposes. Cyberespionage, the militarization of cyberspace, and AI have been the main conflict areas between these two global competitors in the last decade.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, Cybersecurity, Conflict, Strategic Competition, and Information Technology
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

166. Protect, Constrain, Contest: Approaches for coordinated transatlantic economic and technological competition with China

Author:
François Chimits, Ashley T. Lenihan, Jonathan Liebenau, Stephen Paduano, Anthony Vinci, and Peter Watkins
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
The Biden Presidency offers opportunities for a renewed effort at formulating a coordinated allied approach to technological and economic competition with China. The latest report from China Foresight at LSE IDEAS provides a guiding framework for transatlantic coordination, and offers insights into key elements of future cooperation. While challenges abound, the opportunities for action prove just as great in number.
Topic:
Economics, Science and Technology, Transatlantic Relations, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and United States of America

167. Bringing Down the Hammer On Chinese Tech

Author:
Dawn M. K. Zoldi
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Law is what you must do; policy is what you should do. With regard to country-of-origin bans on technology, either one has the effect of the proverbial hammer. Of late, the U.S. government has been wielding that hammer consistently against China in what amounts to an all-out tech war. The most visible fronts have involved Huawei, ByteDance (TikTok), and TenCent (WeChat). However, a lesser-known conflict relating to the commercial drone sector involves Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), a Chinese technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It is a three-pronged assault based on cybersecurity, national security, and human rights concerns. Will the U.S. commercial drone ecosystem get hammered in this conflict?
Topic:
Human Rights, National Security, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, and Drones
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

168. "Systemic Risks": A Conversation on Nuclear Technology and Deterrence with Dr. Vipin Narang

Author:
Dylan Land
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Fletcher Security Review (FSR): What do you perceive as the greatest threat to global nuclear security? Where do you see the greatest potential for the outbreak of nuclear war? ​ Vipin Narang (VN): Rather than focusing on regions, I see three trends which I think we should be concerned about. One is the return of a great power arms race, and a lot of this was exacerbated in the Trump administration. Even as we head into the Biden administration—which extended the New START Treaty with Russia for five years—Russia and China are modernizing their nuclear forces at breakneck speed. They are worried primarily about U.S. missile defenses, which at this point are unconstrained. The United States has a variety of missile defense systems at the regional level which work pretty well, as well as the national missile defense system, which doesn’t…yet. You will often hear that the national missile defense system does not work very well and that is true—the success rate is around 60 percent in simulated tests. It may be difficult to ever get it to work perfectly or even well, but it is the prospect that the United States might get it to work that really drives modernization efforts in Russia and China..... ​
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Risk, Deterrence, and Interview
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Global Focus, and United States of America

169. The Pentagon’s First Financial War

Author:
Justin Bernier
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
China’s strategy for achieving its global ambitions is driven as much by bankers and bribes as bombs and bullets. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to take every step imaginable to appropriate dual-use technologies—those with both civil and military applications—from the United States and its allies, while attracting billions of dollars in Western capital used to finance a modernization program for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) reports that the strategic end state this program supports, if realized, would have serious implications for nothing less than “the security of the international rules-based order.”1 The extent of this threat implies that military tools alone may not prevent an undesirable outcome. The Pentagon is dutifully preparing for the possibility of a kinetic war with the PLA, but DOD has a role to play on the financial battlefield, too. Defense leaders should consider three policy initiatives to curb the flow of technology and capital to China: Encourage compliance on technology transfer laws by rewarding companies and universities with strong export control practices when they compete for federal grants and contracts. Discourage investment in China’s “bad actor” companies by supporting a government policy to assume custody of shareholder voting rights in certain state-owned enterprises (SOE). Track Chinese expansionism through business and financial channels with an all-source intelligence capability designed to provide U.S. officials with strategic warning and policy support. A bureaucratic purist could paint these initiatives as inconsistent with the Defense Department’s core competencies, but this view would be short-sighted. DOD may be the only government agency with the financial leverage, the knowledge base, and the political will to roll back China’s strategy of stealing military technology and securing foreign capital for its armed forces buildup against the United States. More certain is the reality that U.S. servicemembers are endangered by ongoing technology and capital flows from the West to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These high stakes give the Pentagon little choice but to fight back against the financial warfare that China is already waging around the world.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Science and Technology, Finance, and Pentagon
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

170. China’s “New Generation” AI-Brain Project

Author:
William Hannas and Huey-Meei Chang
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
China is pursuing what its leaders call a “first-mover advantage” in artificial intelligence (AI), facilitated by a state-backed plan to achieve breakthroughs by modeling human cognition. While not unique to China, the research warrants concern since it raises the bar on AI safety, leverages ongoing U.S. research, and exposes U.S. deficiencies in tracking foreign technological threats. The article begins with a review of the statutory basis for China’s AI-brain program, examines related scholarship, and analyzes the supporting science. China’s advantages are discussed along with the implications of this brain-inspired research. Recommendations to address our concerns are offered in conclusion. All claims are based on primary Chinese data.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Research, and Artificial Intelligence
Political Geography:
China and Asia