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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Technology is often depicted as an essential variable informing our study on a range of related fields within the social sciences. As Geoffrey L. Herrera puts it, “technology looms across disciplines as a source of social, economic, and/or political change. It is often the master variable that explains everything.”1 Accordingly, “technology must be considered an important, transformative element of the international political system.”2 These observations, made over a decade ago, seem prescient in light of the current moment. Several recent commentaries convey an acute sense of crisis regarding the existing structure of
“international order;” a crisis induced in no small part by the rapidity of technological change.3
One of the seminal areas of interest to scholars of both international relations (IR) and international political economy (IPE) concerns the place of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Whereas only a few decades ago China was an economic and technological backwater effectively walled off from the outside world, today China is a burgeoning superpower whose “rise” is, in no small part, closely tied up in an aptitude for harnessing new forms of technology in service of both economic development and military modernization.4
China’s emergence as a technology power attracts a considerable volume of attention both within the country and without. From semiconductors, AI and ICT software to aerospace, robotics, biotech and sensory
technology, growing prowess elicits an array of reactions from a large and diverse array of stakeholders.5 That China draws keen interest and close scrutiny reflects its massive scale: it is the world’s second largest
1 Geoffrey Herrera, Technology and International Transformation: The Railroad, the Atom Bomb, and the Politics of Technological Change,3.
2 Ibid
3 A prominent example of this argument can be found in Richard Haas, World in Disarray, 2017
4 See Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell. China’s Search for Security, 2012.
5 Jane Perlez, Paul Mozur and Jonathan Ansfield. “China’s Technology Ambitions Could Upset the Global Trade Order.” New York Times. November, 7, 2017.
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economy, largest overall exporter, and a leading producer, assembler and consumer of an array of high-tech products and services.
In this light, it can be argued that China is a major stakeholder in the existing liberal trading order; a system of rules and norms widely seen as essential to this period of economic globalization.6 Recent statements and initiatives taken by the Chinese government emphasize the ways in which China’s economic expansion represents a positive-sum or “win-win” for global development and prosperity.7 In one notable example, Chinese President Xi Jinping, speaking at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, laid out the case as such:
Economic globalization has powered global growth and facilitated movement of goods and capital, advances in science, technology and civilization, and interactions among peoples…it is true that economic globalization has created new problems, but this is no justification to write economic
globalization off completely. Rather, we should adapt to and guide economic globalization, cushion its negative impact, and deliver its benefits to all countries and all nations.8
And yet, despite reassurances that it remains a stalwart of the open trading system, there exists substantial concern over China’s utilization of an array of policy tools seen as favoring domestic firms operating in key industries at the expense of foreign alternatives.9 Over the past few years there has been a growing backlash against “unfair” policies often seen as coming at the expense of foreign technology providers.10 This
decade-plus long emphasis on promoting domestic technology finds support in state planning initiatives such as Made in China 2025 (MIC) and the 12th and 13th Five Year Plans (FYPs), as well as in important national security and cybersecurity legislation.
6 “China supports globalization, free trade: Premier Li.” Reuters. March 15, 2017.
7 “China contributes win-win solutions against counter-globalization. People’s Daily Online. September 26, 2017. <
http://english.gov.cn/news/top_news/2017/09/26/content_281475885630178.htm>
8 Xi Jinping, Speech at 2017 WEF, Translation from CGTN America < https://america.cgtn.com/2017/01/17/full-text-of-xi-jinping-keynote-at-the-world-economic-forum>
9 Michael Martina. “U.S. lobby says China protectionism fueling foreign business pessimism.” Reuters. January 18, 2017.
10 Keith Bradsher. “Trump’s Trade Pick Could Put China in a Difficult Spot.” New York Times, January 13, 2017
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Looking at developments in the country more broadly, it can be argued the past decade upended the belief that China - by virtue of its heightened degree of exposure to foreign ideas, institutions, technologies and people - would move in the direction of greater convergence with an array of Western political and economic norms11; becoming what American official Bob Zoellick famously described as a “responsible
stakeholder.”12 With that in mind, the need for a nuanced understanding of the PRC’s technology landscape has arguably never been more important given the confluence of two major developments: the increasing size, complexity, competitiveness and level of international connectivity within China’s technology market and growing contentiousness in China’s security and commercial relations with an array of external powers,
principally the United States.
The rapid ascension of China as a major player in the globalized high-tech market comes at a time of heightened debate and potential strategic re-calibration in terms of how a number of foreign capitals approach their relationships with Beijing.13 Evan Feigenbaum, writing recently in The National Interest, argues that, “China’s rapid military buildup, its unprecedentedly quick industrial and economic development, an increasingly assertive Chinese foreign policy, and new competitive pressures on the United States’
economy and fiscal health” are undermining the belief within Washington D.C. that a “successful” China is in the national interest. He goes on to state that, “among Washington foreign-policy elites and a growing number of U.S. companies, China is viewed as a strategic competitor, a military threat in Asia and, ultimately, a possible adversary.”14
Chinese technology policy largely feeds into this debate, as evidenced by recent international headlines such as the New York Times’ “Political Backlash Grows in Washington to Chinese Takeovers”15 and the FT’s
11 David Shambaugh, China’s Future, 2016
12 Robert Zoellick. “Whither China: From Membership to Responsibility?” Transcript from U.S. Department of State Archive <
https://2001-2009.state.gov/s/d/former/zoellick/rem/53682.htm>
13 See Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley Tellis. Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China. CFR. April, 2015.
14 Evan Feigenbaum, Not Since Nixon Has a U.S. President Faced Such a Tough China Challenge.”The National Interest, 2017.
15 Keith Brasher and Paul Mozur. “Political Backlash Grows in Washington to Chinese Takeovers.” New York Times. February 16, 2016
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“China’s push to become a tech superpower triggers alarms abroad.”16 The Information Technology &
Innovation Foundation (ITIF), an ICT industry group, states that “China’s aggressive and unrelenting
innovation-mercantilist policies pose a serious and growing threat to both the U.S. and global economy as well as to advanced technology enterprises from the United States and other nations competing on rules- and market-based terms.”17 As Scott Kennedy notes in a recent CSIS report on Chinese innovation, “the most problematic issue in the U.S.-China economic relationship is China’s unprecedented drive to become a technology powerhouse.”18
1.2 Purpose of the Study
Techno-nationalist ideology, industrial policy, and state planning figure prominently in the academic literature describing East Asian development over the course of the post-World War II period. At various times and to varying extents, every state in the region has been categorized as pursuing a
“techno-nationalist” strategy of development.19 This was the case with China, where the combination of extensive central planning and extreme fear over the nature of the Cold War international security environment drove early PRC industrial policy in the direction of a relatively autarkic form of self-sufficiency principally oriented around indigenous defense production capability.20
However, the reform and opening period commencing in the late 1970s called into question the resiliency of the role of the Chinese state in managing processes of industrial transformation. With the end of the Cold War and the onset of the current phase of ICT-enabled globalization, there emerged a growing belief that the nation-state was losing its saliency as the principal driver of economic and technological development.21 Residual attitudes and institutions of Mao-era central planning and communist governance were perceived
16 Louise Lucas and Emily Feng, “China’s Push to Become a Tech Superpower is Triggering Alarm Bells Abroad.” Financial Times. March 20, 2017.
17 Robert Atkinson, Nigel Cory and Stephen Ezell. Stopping China’s Mercantilism. ITIF. March, 2017.
18 Scott Kennedy and Christopher Johnson. Perfecting China, Inc. CSIS. May, 2016.
19 Tai Ming Cheung. “Economics, security, and technology in Northeast Asia: Maneuvering between nationalist and globalist forces.” The Economy-Security Nexus in Northeast Asia, 2013.
20 Ibid
21 A proponent of this view is Kenichi Ohmae, The Borderless World, 1990.
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by reformist voices as outdated remnants of a bygone era, likely to be eventually swept away as China further consolidated its transition from socialism to capitalism.22 Yet several decades into the reform and opening period, economic nationalism and techno-industrial policy remain very much in vogue; in China, around the Asia-Pacific, and increasingly in parts of the Western world.23
This thesis seeks to provide insight into the political rationale underlying China’s continuing usage of an extensive techno-industrial policy architecture; a system that, while substantially overhauled and
reformulated over the course of multiple decades, persists in the face of comprehensive marketization processes and substantial international integration. In explaining this persistence, the proceeding research focuses primarily on technology at the ideational level - situating technology policy into a broader context of ideas, strategies, and objectives pertinent to central issues of security, power, competition and development.
At its core, this thesis suggests that, in the age of globalization, techno-nationalism remains a highly salient framework for understanding how China’s political and bureaucratic elite conceptualize strategic technology and develop techno-industrial policy.
1.3 Structure of the Thesis
Chapter 1 provides the introduction; addressing the purpose and relevancy of the research and the principal research questions to be addressed.
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the relevant literature on techno-nationalism and the underlying set of
beliefs undergirding it. It specifically examines techno-nationalism within the context of East Asian
development. Finally, it examines the phenomenon of globalization and techno-globalism; exploring how the role of the state in technological development is in constant evolution.
22 One prominent critic of this idea is James Mann. The China Fantasy: Why Capitalism will not bring democracy to China, 2006
23 Anthony D’Costa, Globalization and Economic Nationalism in Asia, 2012.
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Chapter 3 provides an in-depth analysis of the ideational foundations of China’s approach to strategic
technology. It examines a number of both systemic and contemporary aspects Chinese politics; seeking to provide insight into why successive generations of Chinese leadership have gravitated toward techno-nationalist strategic thinking and why this thinking will likely persist.
Chapter 4 looks at Chinese industrial and techno-industrial policy from the ROC period through to the
present. It seeks to establish that throughout modern history the Chinese state has been deeply involved in both protecting and promoting strategically important domestic industries, managing processes of
technological development and transformation, and creating institutional structures geared toward bolstering domestic innovation and R&D capacity. Over the course of this overview, the thesis links industrial and techno-industrial policy formation with core techno-nationalist ideas about the nature of security and international economic competition.
Chapter 5 shifts the emphasis of the research from a focus on ideation and policy formation into the realm of
implementation and policy interaction. It does so by way of case study; looking at three strategically important sectors: semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.
Chapter 6 provides the conclusion. It summarizes and attempts to define China’s contemporary techno-nationalism in practice and briefly explores possible ramifications of China’s techno-industrial policy.
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