Search

Begin New Search Topic Science and Technology Political Geography China

221. 2020 Country Brief: China

Author:
Third Way
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Third Way
Abstract:
hina is no longer a budding regional hegemon, but a global power seeking to rival the United States on the international stage in economic, military, technological, and diplomatic terms. Further, the country’s actions—such as handling public health issues—have direct consequences for Americans. Moderating China’s growing influence is the foreign policy challenge that will define the future. Yet “America First” policies, in combination with erratic leadership, have placed the United States at a strategic disadvantage in the international arena, providing China the opportunity to fill a leadership void and promote its policies and technologies, while achieving its economic and military ambitions.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Hegemony, Leadership, and Influence
Political Geography:
China and Asia

222. Language Change in Progress: Chinese Internet Lexicon and the Symbolic Meaning in the Harmonious Society

Author:
Ting-Yu Lee
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:
Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:
Globalization and communication on the internet poses challenges to sociolinguistics. China is one of the engines of economic in the world. Since the Internet service started in 1994, it has been developing rapidly. The rapid development of Internet communication in China has created huge impact on the Chinese language and society. According to Yates (1996), a new medium of communication such as the Internet not only draws upon existing linguistic practices, but also generates new forms of Chinese Internet lexicon. The rapid diffusion of the Internet has prompted developments in the variety and creativity of language use. Internet users often create new words or appropriate the meanings of existing words. The resultant “Internet language” has unique lexical and discourse features. Li (2002) and Ma (2002) confirmed that Internet lexicon has brought the tremendous impact and spread to everyday usage in Chinese society. In 2006 National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Graphic Media Center has released the first time an annual report of Inventory of Chinese Language (汉语盘点 Hanyu pandian). Since 2011 ten most popular Internet hot words have been released annually by National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Graphic Media Center. This research is aimed to discusses the emergence and use of most popular Chinese Internet vocabularies in the recent 10 years. Based on the data from National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Graphic Media Center, the most popular Chinese Internet words and phrases(2011–2019) are analyzed and summarized into twelve categories. The implication and findings of the symbolic meaning embedded in the Chinese internet lexicon are analyzed. This study sets out to examine the transformation of internet lexicon in China and to argue the equivalent relation between symbols, language and popular culture.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Internet, Language, and Society
Political Geography:
China and Asia

223. How the United States marched the semiconductor industry into its trade war with China

Author:
Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The US-China trade war forced a reluctant semiconductor industry into someone else’s fight, a very different position from its leading role in the 1980s trade conflict with Japan. This paper describes how the political economy of the global semiconductor industry has evolved since the 1980s. That includes both a shift in the business model behind how semiconductors go from conception to a finished product as well as the geographic reorientation toward Asia of demand and manufactured supply. It uses that lens to explain how, during the modern conflict with China, US policymakers turned to a legally complex set of export restrictions targeting the semiconductor supply chain in the attempt to safeguard critical infrastructure in the telecommunications sector. The potentially far-reaching tactics included weaponization of exports by relatively small but highly specialized American software service and equipment providers in order to constrain Huawei, a Fortune Global 500 company. It describes potential costs of such policies, some of their unintended consequences, and whether policymakers might push them further in the attempt to constrain other Chinese firms.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Trade Wars, Industry, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

224. Is China’s Innovation a Threat to the South Korea-China Economic Relationship?

Author:
Wonho Yeon
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
This paper reviews China’s technological rise and assesses whether it poses a threat to the South Korean economy. In terms of comparative advantage between the two countries, many experts have long believed that China’s strength is low-cost labor and Korea’s is technology and capital. However, this has changed as China’s economy grows. Now China has enough capital to invest in its economy. Some scholars even argue that China has the potential to meet its “innovation imperative” and emerge as a driving force in innovation on a global level.1 This paper examines the Korea-China economic relationship from the innovation productivity perspective, organized into sections: briefly introducing the Korea- China economic relationship; describing the technological rise of China, based on recent data; developing the model to analyze the innovation productivity of China and report the estimation results; evaluating the concern of the South Korean semiconductor industry; and presenting conclusions.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Science and Technology, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and South Korea

225. Competitive Strategies for Democracy in the Age of AI

Author:
Andrew Imbrie
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
In a 1972 paper for the United States Air Force Project at RAND, the late Andrew Marshall defined what he called a more “efficient, effective U.S. competitive role.”1 His theory of the case was straightforward: The United States needed to sustain a long-term, strategic competition with the Soviet Union; the nature of that competition was poorly specified, but could be shaped in ways favorable to enduring U.S. advantages; and the United States should therefore assess the balance of strategic forces, clarify its goals, and develop competitive strategies to match its strengths against Soviet weaknesses. The competition between the United States and China today is different from and far more complex than the U.S.-Soviet competition during the Cold War, notably in the levels of economic interdependence and the role of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers seek to achieve strategic advantage through AI-enabled capabilities and systems.2 By one estimate, more than 100 countries purchase surveillance and censorship gear from China and Russia, receive training on these technologies, or simply imitate methods of surveillance and censorship that are designed to control public opinion.3 As the digital and physical environments become intertwined, authoritarian practices in one domain will increasingly encroach upon the other. At stake are the core values of liberty, equality, and justice that underpin free and open societies. The novel coronavirus pandemic will accelerate these trends. Increased U.S.-China tensions, cascading economic crises, and renewed debates over the resilience of supply chains and the future of digital surveillance are all characteristics of a world that demands global cooperation but sorely lacks it. The fault lines between liberal democracies and illiberal, authoritarian regimes are widening at a time of growing turbulence in the international system. Even before the virus, U.S.-China relations faced a heightened risk of conflict. The years ahead are likely to bring greater turmoil, with AI and other emerging technologies at the center of an extended, continuing strategic competition among the major powers. In the long-term contest between the forces of democracy and autocracy, the United States should apply Marshall’s counsel and develop more competitive strategies that play to its strengths. The right U.S. approach starts with its broad network of allies and partners. America has formed security guarantees with 52 countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, compared with Russia’s five (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) and China’s one (North Korea).4 The United States benefits from allies that share its values and produce strategic resources in AI, including computer and data science experts; private sectors that are innovative, dominant, and trend-setting; large and diverse pools data on which to train algorithms; governmental research and development (R&D) investments; diplomatic support for initiatives in AI safety and governance; and the clout needed to export norms and best practices internationally. In a world of globalized markets for AI talent and integrated supply chains, an alliance-centric strategy provides a competitive advantage over any single country that attempts to develop a robust AI ecosystem on its own. A competitive strategy in AI will require the United States and its allies to assess their comparative advantages; identify anomalies and patterns in the strategic choices of authoritarian competitors that are deeply rooted; and match relative strengths against specific areas of weakness.5 This paper focuses on the dynamics between the United States and China in AI. Based on an initial assessment of recent advances and long-term potential, it recommends that democratic nations sharpen their edge in five key areas: Hardware edge: exploit hardware chokepoints, leveraging the advantages that democratic nations have in the production of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and advanced AI chips. Data edge: develop common standards to share, pool, and store non-sensitive data sets around discrete projects, such as health intelligence and biosecurity, predictive maintenance, and maritime domain awareness; invest in privacy-preserving machine learning; and support research into new techniques for making personal data less relevant to AI systems, such as one-shot learning and advanced simulations. Talent edge: develop inter-allied human capital in AI, share best practices, and cultivate democratic networks of AI researchers through exchange programs, joint scholarships, and conference support, while ensuring research security among allies and partners. Innovation edge: harness the estimated two-thirds of global R&D that is conducted by democratic nations to foster collaboration in specific areas of promise, such as human-machine teaming methods and verification techniques for complex controls systems and AI-enabled, safety-critical infrastructure. Rule-setting edge: shape global norms and standards for AI, reflecting and supporting human rights and liberal values; create the conditions for a common AI market among democratic nations; and extend the benefits of AI to fragile democracies by establishing a multilateral digital infrastructure network.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Democracy, Artificial Intelligence, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

226. A Future Internet for Democracies: Contesting China’s Push for Dominance in 5G, 6G, and the Internet of Everything

Author:
Lindsay Gorman
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
The United States and its democratic allies are engaged in a contest for the soul of the Future Internet. Conceived as a beacon of free expression with the power to tear down communication barriers across free and unfree societies alike, the Internet today faces significant challenges to its status as the world’s ultimate connector. In creating connectivity and space for democratic speech, it has also enabled new means of authoritarian control and the suppression of human rights through censorship and surveillance. As tensions between democracies and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) heat up over Internet technologies, the prospect of a dichotomous Internet comes more sharply into focus: a democratic Internet where information flows freely and an authoritarian Internet where it is tightly controlled—separated not by an Iron Curtain, but a Silicon one. The Future Internet is deeply enmeshed in the dawning information contest between autocracies and democracies. It is the base layer—the foundation—on which communication takes place and the entry point into narrative and societal influence. How the next generation of Internet technologies are created, defined, governed, and ultimately used will have an outsized impact on this information contest—and the larger geopolitical contest—between democracy and authoritarianism. China’s growing presence in the global telecommunications market—and the threat that reality poses to the United States and its allies—has catalyzed both national security and economic policy interest in fifth-generation cellular network infrastructure (5G). Like 2G, 3G, and 4G before it, the next generation of mobile connectivity promises a step-change in Internet capability and a societal transformation—through the explosion of connected devices across cities, vehicles, factories, and homes. The nascent data-fueled economy 5G Internet will spawn represents a new playing field for nation-state competition in both commercial innovation and systems of governance alike. In this new economy, United States leadership is not assured. China has made a targeted push to lead the world in the emerging technologies of the future—built on future networks and extending to the applications their data will enable: from artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous cars to smart grids and advanced manufacturing. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has by some measures provided the most technical contributions to the 5G standard and last year filed more patents in Europe than any other company. Heavy state subsidies provided by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have increased the competitiveness of Chinese firms in critical technology industries abroad. As the Pentagon’s Innovation Board bluntly put it: “The country that owns 5G will own many of these innovations and set the standards for the rest of the world … That country is currently not likely to be the United States.”
Topic:
Science and Technology, Democracy, Internet, and 5G
Political Geography:
China and Asia

227. 5G Security: The New Energy Security

Author:
Kristine Berzina
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS)
Abstract:
Europe is on the cusp of a crucial technological and political transformation. This year, most EU member states will need to finalize plans for building 5G networks, which will overhaul the way their economies function. Only a handful of companies around the globe can provide the equipment needed for a 5G system—China’s Huawei and Europe’s Ericsson and Nokia are leaders. Europe’s telecommunications operators have focused on economic questions such as cost and timing in selecting suppliers, but strategic and geopolitical concerns are no less important, as are the concerns of Europe’s allies. The United States has banned Huawei from much of its infrastructure over security concerns, and in July, the United Kingdom reversed course and banned the installation of new Huawei parts from its 5G networks starting in 2021 and requiring the removal of existing equipment by 2027. The EU’s member states are in the process of making critical decisions of their own, and the stakes are high. Europe is at risk of locking itself into new technological and strategic dependencies with an authoritarian state: China. Europe has deep and painful experience with dependence on an authoritarian superpower, just in a different sector and with a different power. The commodity in question is old-fashioned natural gas, and the country is Russia. Western European countries entered into long-term energy ties with Russia through the construction of natural gas pipelines in the 1970s over vehement objections by successive U.S. administrations.1 To this day, Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe,2 and the decision to power European industry on Russian gas continues to eat away at European and transatlantic solidarity. Germany’s ongoing support for Russian natural gas projects, such as the Nord Stream pipelines, ignores the energy security worries of Germany’s EU neighbors3 and is subjecting European companies to U.S. sanctions.4 Over the past several decades, the natural gas relationship between Russia and Germany, in particular, has grown into a vector for Russia’s influence in Europe’s strongest economy. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder became the chairman of the board of the first Nord Stream pipeline, which was conceived of during his chancellorship, and then drew further financial benefits from the Russian energy sector in his roles as chairman of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and of Rosneft, Russia’s massive state-owned oil company.5 Having a former head of government accept money from Russian state-owned companies, and then advocate in favor of government policies friendly to Russia, is an example of how the economic relationship with Russia can corrupt and coopt the political establishment. It has taken the European Union nearly four decades and significant funds to put in place a regulatory framework and infrastructure that offset the energy security risks inherent in the reliance on Russia’s natural gas. Critical capabilities now in place include the ability to pump gas from west to east, EU oversight of member states’ bilateral natural gas supply contracts with Russia, and the unbundling of monolithic companies to allow for greater competition and third-party access to major infrastructure.6 And the system is still imperfect. While it is unlikely that EU citizens will be left freezing in January because of a natural gas supply cut-off, the distrust that pipelines foment between EU member states continues to poison European ties. Moreover, getting here required various worst-case scenarios to occur—supply disruptions and Russian military aggression on the European continent—before the EU took significant action. In 2006 and 2009, Russia cut off natural gas supplies because of disputes with Ukraine that literally left Europeans in the cold during the dead of winter.7 These incidents launched real regulatory efforts to increase the security of energy flows.8 But even then, it took Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 for the EU to delve into the bigger geopolitical questions of energy security and launch a European Energy Union.9 The Energy Union has fixed critical vulnerabilities but still was not able to stop plans to build new pipelines to Russia. The EU does not have forty years to steel itself against the risk of China’s technology and economic coercion. The digital economy is faster-moving and will be more fundamental to the transformation of Europe’s economy in the coming decades than energy trade with Russia has been so far. It may be more important for Europe to protect itself against the strategic vulnerabilities that can come from technological dependency on China than it was for Europe to get the gas question right, and Europe will have less time to do it. This paper explains what 5G technology is, assesses where the EU stands on telecoms infrastructure and 5G policymaking, compares the risks of Europe’s dependence on Russia for natural gas with the risks of dependence on China for 5G, and offers policy solutions and recommendations for Europe to reduce its vulnerability.
Topic:
Security, Energy Policy, Science and Technology, European Union, and 5G
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and United States of America

228. Making Sense of Technological Spheres of Influence

Author:
Valentin Weber
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
LSE IDEAS
Abstract:
The deterioration of Sino-American relations and the rise of novel forms of statecraft have given way to a worrying new feature of the international system: technological spheres of influence. In this Strategic Update, Valentin Weber explains how we have arrived at this novel geopolitical arrangement, where in the world the greatest contestation lies, and what the future of technospheres may hold.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Bilateral Relations, and International System
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

229. Healing One-fifth of Humanity: Progress and Challenges for China’s Health System

Author:
Karen Eggleston
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
China’s national health reforms over the past two decades have brought the system closer to the modern, safe, reliable and accessible health system that is commensurate with China’s dramatic economic growth, improvement in living standards, and high hopes for the next generation. Celebrating a decade this year, China’s national health reforms of 2009 consolidated a system of social health insurance covering the entire population for basic health services, contributing to a surge in healthcare utilization while reducing out-of-pocket costs to patients – which declined from 56% to 28% of total health expenditures between 2003 and 2017. An expanded basic public health service package, funded by per capita government budget allocations that include a higher central government subsidy for lower income provinces, provides basic population health services to all Chinese. A higher percentage of Chinese accessed hospital admissions in 2017 than in the average high-income (OECD) country – a large increase from the turn of the 21st century.i A recent re-shuffle of the governance structure consolidates the purchaser role for social health insurance schemes under the newly created National Healthcare Security Administration, with most other health sector functions under the re-christened National Health Commission, among other changes. China’s world-leading technological prowess in multiple fields spanning digital commerce to artificial intelligence—and accompanying innovative business models such as WeDoctor that have not yet been fully integrated into the health system—hold promise for supporting higher quality and more convenient healthcare for China’s 1.4 billion.
Topic:
Health, Science and Technology, Governance, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
China and Asia

230. Asian Space Race is Rhetoric or Reality: Implication for South Asia

Author:
Fazal Abbas Awan
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
South Asian region is now facing a new star because Space is an advantageous frontier for military uses. Space technology has two aspects on the name of security such as Militarization and Weaponization. These terms cannot properly differentiate the difference between security and threat for space. All current and previous super powers are working on space for more than five decades in the name of technology and security. Now these super powers are going to make grouping on space for getting hegemony not only on earth but also in space. As a result, the challenges in space have triggered and magnified the security dilemma for the South Asian rivals, interconnecting China, India, and Pakistan in the context of an international security complex. Indian foreign policy for other regional countries and applying strategy of Kautilya to defeat their enemy by using name of South Asian Satellite is new wave of race.
Topic:
Security, Science and Technology, Space, and Satellite
Political Geography:
Pakistan, China, South Asia, and India