Leading technology is open competition

Editor’s Note: At a forum on 5G technology cooperation held in Beijing on Tuesday, Zheng Yongnian, a researcher in politics with The Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen delivered a speech on cooperation and competition in high technology between China and the US. Excerpts:

Fundamentally, it is the worsening of the internal issues in the United States that has led to the deterioration of its relations with China. The US now views China as a rival threatening its global interests and even an enemy.

In the field of technology, the Joe Biden administration has been going even farther than its predecessor, and its China policy goes broader and deeper than the US’ Soviet Union policy at the climax of the Cold War.

The US will continue to do all it can to weaken China’s economic and technological foundations. The decoupling of the two sides in high technologies and high-end manufacturing is almost irreversible. The US will also try to isolate Chinese companies around the world through various kinds of exclusive technology and industry alliances, and thwart all technology cooperation and exchanges.

To counter the US’ containment, China’s pursuit of technological progress should be transformed into greater resolve to carry on with its opening-up policies. If the door is closed, the country might fall behind even though it is a leading player in the development of technology.

On the one hand, only through opening up can China promote the flow of innovative elements, improve its pro-innovation environment and diversify its innovation foundation.

On the other hand, China should draw plenty painful lessons from the periods in its history when it closed its door to the world. It was also during these periods when the country lagged behind the world.

The development achievements of China over the past more than 40 years are inseparable from its opening-up to the developed countries. The fall of the Soviet Union can be partly attributed to its closed-door policies.

The US should not underestimate China’s technological innovation capacity, and the technological and economic complementarity between China and the developed economies. Unlike the Soviet Union, China has a large number of private enterprises and a complete industrial structure that have been embedded into the global supply chains.

The technology competition between the US and China is in how open they are to the rest of the world, not how closed they can become. The future belongs to the country that can make the best use of foreign markets, technologies, talent and capital.