美國無法阻止中國 America Can't Stop China\'s Rise

美國無法阻止中國的崛起

2023 年 9 月 16 日 作者：Kishore Mahbubani

https://mahbubani.net/america-cant-stop-chinas-rise/

毫無疑問，美國政府已決定減緩中國的經濟崛起，尤其是在技術發展領域。 可以肯定的是，拜登政府否認這些是其目標。 珍妮特·耶倫2023年4月20日表示，“中國的經濟增長不一定與美國的經濟領導地位不相容。 美國仍然是世界上最具活力和繁榮的經濟體。 我們沒有理由擔心與任何國家進行健康的經濟競爭。” 傑克·沙利文 (Jake Sullivan) 於 2023 年 4 月 27 日表示，“我們的出口管製將繼續集中於可能傾斜軍事平衡的技術。 我們隻是確保美國和盟國的技術不會被用來對付我們。”

然而，拜登政府在其行動中表明，其願景超出了這些適度的目標。 它並沒有扭轉特朗普在 2018 年對中國征收的貿易關稅——盡管總統候選人拜登在 2019 年 7 月批評了這些關稅，並表示：“特朗普總統可能認為他對中國采取了強硬態度。 他所帶來的結果是美國農民、製造商和消費者遭受損失並付出更多代價。” 相反，拜登政府試圖通過禁止芯片、半導體設備和特定軟件的出口來加大對中國的壓力。 它還說服荷蘭和日本等盟友效仿。 最近，2023 年 8 月 9 日，拜登政府發布行政命令，禁止美國在中國投資涉及“半導體和微電子、量子信息技術和人工智能領域的敏感技術和產品”，這些技術和產品“對國家安全構成特別嚴重的威脅”。 威脅，因為它們有可能顯著提升中國的軍事、情報、監視或網絡能力”。

所有這些行為都證實了美國政府正在試圖阻止中國的增長。 然而，最大的問題是美國能否在這場競選中取得成功——答案可能不會。 幸運的是，美國現在調整其對華政策以更好地為美國人和世界其他國家服務還為時不晚。

美國減緩中國技術發展的決定類似於那句老話所揭示的愚蠢之舉：馬跑後關門。 現代中國已經多次表明，中國的科技發展無法停止。

自 1949 年中華人民共和國成立以來，中國采取了多項措施來限製中國獲得或阻止其發展各種關鍵技術，包括核武器、太空、衛星通信、全球定位係統、半導體、超級計算機和人工智能。 美國還試圖遏製中國在5G、商用無人機和電動汽車等領域的市場主導地位。 縱觀曆史，遏製中國技術崛起的單邊或域外執法努力都失敗了，而且在當前背景下，正在對美國長期的地緣政治夥伴關係造成不可彌補的損害。 1993年，克林頓政府試圖限製中國獲得衛星技術。 如今，中國在太空中擁有 541 顆衛星，並正在發射星鏈的競爭對手。

GPS 也遵循同樣的原理。 1999年，當美國限製中國訪問其地理空間數據係統時，中國簡單地建立了自己的並行北鬥全球導航衛星係統（GNSS）係統，這是第一波重大技術脫鉤的浪潮之一。 在某些方麵，北鬥如今比 GPS 更好。 它是世界上最大的 GNSS，擁有 45 顆衛星，而 GPS 則有 31 顆，因此能夠在全球大多數首都提供更多信號。 它由 120 個地麵站支持，精度更高，並具有更先進的信號功能，例如雙向消息傳遞。 其他國家此前也曾嚐試阻止中國的技術崛起，但均以失敗告終。 在20世紀50年代和1960年代，當蘇聯向中國扣留核武器技術時，中國在1960年代初啟動了自己的“曼哈頓計劃”，並於1964年成功試驗了第一枚核武器。俄羅斯對中國的核影響力在那一天結束。

拜登政府對中國采取的許多措施也是在沒有考慮到中國的報複能力的情況下執行的。 盡管中國並未實際建造美國技術堆棧中許多真正不可替代的組成部分，但他們敏銳地意識到其原材料投入（稀土）和需求（創收）在推動美國創新生態係統方麵的重要性，並且現在將其用作 杠杆作用。 在當前針鋒相對的動態中，中國將開始擠壓價值鏈的這兩個關鍵端，以應對美國的技術和資本出口限製。

中國7月禁止镓和鍺出口隻是一個開槍，旨在提醒美國（及其盟友）中國在稀土和關鍵金屬領域的主導地位。 該國在鎂、鉍、鎢、石墨、矽、釩、螢石、碲、銦、銻、重晶石、鋅和錫的加工方麵幾乎處於壟斷地位。 中國還在鋰、鈷、鎳和銅等美國當前和未來技術願望所必需的材料的中遊加工方麵占據主導地位，這些材料對於全球快速發展的電動汽車行業至關重要。

雖然美國和其他中立國家擁有許多此類材料的礦產儲備，但如果認為可以簡單地打開生產開關，那就太天真了。 僅建設必要的開采和加工基礎設施就至少需要 3 至 5 年的時間。 更不用說招募和培訓熟練勞動力，或獲得此類活動所需的運營和環境許可。 兩者都可能被證明是不可能的。 稀土加工是一種劇毒且破壞環境的活動。 不太可能獲得此類批準。 如果亞利桑那州正在努力為其台積電工廠尋找合格的工人，並解決國內工會反對進口外國熟練勞動力的問題，那麽美國就不太可能發展類似的材料加工能力。 在此過程中，中國在如何分配其加工材料方麵扮演著王者的角色，可能會限製對美國技術和國防巨頭的供應。 沒有考慮到中國的報複能力，表明美國沒有一個經過深思熟慮、全麵的應對中國的方法。

可能更具災難性的是，美國剝奪中國獲得最先進芯片的措施可能對美國大型芯片製造公司的損害超過對中國的損害。 中國是全球最大的半導體消費國。 過去十年，中國從美國公司進口大量芯片。 根據美國商會的數據，2019年中國企業從美國企業進口了價值705億美元的半導體，約占這些企業全球銷售額的37%。 Qorvo、德州儀器和博通等一些美國公司約一半的收入來自中國。 高通60%的收入、英特爾四分之一的收入以及英偉達五分之一的銷售額都來自中國市場。 難怪這三家公司的首席執行官最近前往華盛頓警告稱，出口管製可能會損害美國的行業領導地位。 美國公司也將受到中國報複行動的傷害，例如中國於 2023 年 5 月禁止美國美光科技公司生產芯片。 中國占美光銷售額的 25% 以上。

對中國的銷售產生的巨額收入盈餘被投入研發工作，從而使美國芯片公司保持領先地位。 美國商會估計，如果美國完全禁止對華半導體銷售，美國企業將損失830億美元的年收入，並不得不裁員12.4萬人。 他們還必須削減至少120億美元的年度研發預算，以及130億美元的資本支出。 從長遠來看，這將使他們更難以在全球範圍內保持競爭力。 美國半導體公司痛苦地意識到，美國在芯片領域針對中國的行動對他們利益的損害將大於對中國利益的損害。 美國半導體行業協會（SIA）於 2023 年 7 月 17 日發表聲明稱，華盛頓一再采取的措施“實施過於廣泛、模糊且有時是單方麵的限製，可能會削弱美國半導體行業的競爭力，擾亂供應鏈，造成重大的市場不確定性” ，並促使中國繼續升級報複”，並呼籲拜登政府在沒有與半導體行業代表和專家進行更廣泛接觸的情況下不要實施進一步的限製。

《芯片法案》無法無限期地補貼美國半導體行業，而且全球不存在其他需求基礎可以取代中國。 其他芯片生產國將不可避免地打破常規並向中國出售產品（正如它們曆史上所做的那樣），而美國的行動將毫無意義。 而且，通過禁止向中國出口芯片和其他核心投入，美國在戰爭爆發前幾年就將戰爭計劃交給了中國。 中國正在被敦促比其他情況更早地實現自給自足。 在中興和華為零部件禁令之前，中國滿足於繼續購買美國芯片並專注於前端硬件。 ASML首席執行官Peter Wennick表示，中國在半導體的關鍵應用和需求方麵已經處於領先地位。

溫尼克寫道：“電信基礎設施、電池技術的推出，是中關鍵和成熟半導體的最佳點，而中國毫無例外地在這方麵處於領先地位。”

美國短視的保護主義政策喚醒了沉睡的巨人。 美國現在麵臨著關鍵收入損失的短期威脅，而這些收入推動了使其成為創新領導者的研發，而從長遠來看，中國將不可避免地建立自己的全麵半導體生態係統。 盡管美國對該公司實施嚴厲製裁，華為仍能推出采用國產5G芯片和操作係統的新型智能手機Mate 60 Pro，這表明美國在試圖阻止中國技術增長和發展方麵的政策是多麽不明智。

由於美國不太可能阻止中國的技術增長和發展（事實上，也不太可能阻止中國成為同等的全球大國），因此有一種更開明的接觸方式。 伊索寓言“北風和太陽”最能說明這一點。 故事中，北風刮得很猛，卻沒能吹走旅人的鬥篷。 相反，是溫暖的陽光說服旅行者脫掉鬥篷。

美國決策者現在普遍認為，美國長達五年的對華接觸政策已經失敗。 正如庫爾特·坎貝爾和伊利·拉特納在《外交事務》文章中坦率指出的那樣，“自尼克鬆邁出第一步走向和解以來近半個世紀，記錄越來越清楚地表明，華盛頓再次過於相信自己塑造中國發展軌跡的力量。 [……]中國反而走自己的路，在這個過程中辜負了美國的一係列期望。”

當然，如果接觸政策的目的是改變中國的內部治理體係，那麽它已經失敗了。 然而，如果這是目標，那麽對於一個擁有 250 年曆史的共和國（占中國人口的四分之一）來說，相信自己可以按照自己的喜好改變一個 4000 年曆史的文明，那就是一種非常傲慢的行為。 然而，如果美國政策的目標是鼓勵中國成為“負責任的利益相關者”（用鮑勃·佐利克的話說），那麽這項政策很可能會成功。 美國外交政策全國委員會、美國公誼服務委員會和四位獨立研究人員進行的一項綜合研究表明，中國的行為因各種接觸政策而改變，特別是在減少氣候變化、改善公共衛生和 全球金融穩定。 前國務院官員蘇珊·桑頓（Susan Thornton）作為NCAFP亞太安全論壇主任負責監督這項研究，她表示：“對美中外交的這次審查表明，我們可以通過談判取得進展，而中國也履行了自己的承諾 。 認為與中國接觸對美國沒有好處的觀點是不準確的。” 確實，曆史記錄表明，《北風與太陽》的寓意中蘊藏著智慧：“溫和善勸勝，武力威嚇失敗。”

一個根本問題是，美國的國內政治迫使美國決策者對中國采取強硬立場，而不是采取務實立場。 例如，阻止中國國防部長李尚福訪問美國的製裁阻礙了中美防務對話，以防止軍事事故的發生。 然而，美國政府卻束手無策。 它無法解除製裁，即使事實證明這些製裁對於實現美國的政策目標無效。

這就是為什麽美國現在應該對其用於實現外交政策目標的方法進行重大重新評估。 它實施製裁的首選策略既未能阻止中國的技術發展，也未能以任何重大方式影響中國的行為 — — 而且大多數國家發現，與其配合並不符合自己的利益。 除了製裁之外還有更有效的替代方案嗎？

安東尼·布林肯 (Anthony Blinken) 2022 年 5 月在一份解釋拜登政府對華政策的聲明中表示：“我們將滿懷信心地競爭； 我們將盡我們所能進行合作； 我們將在必須的地方進行競爭。” 我們同意這種做法。 美國不應該損害自身利益並強化地緣政治和經濟競爭對手，而應該實行更加開明的技術政策。 重點必須放在可持續支持和擴大美國創新領導地位的舉措上，同時通過手術消除特定的國家安全威脅。

可持續的合作結構取代中美技術競爭的零和框架，對兩國和人類都有利。 如果沒有中國的參與，大多數西方減排目標就無法實現，中國擁有太陽能、風能和電池動力的許多專利和核心投入。

聯合研究項目、臨床試驗和數據集對於解決癌症等慢性全球健康問題至關重要。 脫鉤的技術生態係統不僅阻礙進步，而且還會因並行發展和單邊監管而產生其他普遍風險。 人們立即想到的是人工智能或核能等潛在世界末日技術的不受限製的增長。 繼續歡迎中國科技人才到美國學習、工作和定居，也有利於兩國科技進步。 這些科學家可以充當中美科學合作的橋梁。

美國政府還應該考慮全麵重啟由布什政府發起、由奧巴馬政府繼續、由特朗普政府結束的所有高層對話。 恢複高層對話，並建立匯聚兩國頂尖科學家的高級別科技對話，很可能為美國的長期國家利益帶來更積極的成果。

最初，這種大國合作可以集中在雙方具有共同長期利益的領域（如氣候變化、流行病防範、全球經濟穩定、教育）。 當基本信任建立起來後，對話與合作就可以逐步擴大。 這些舉措都不會導致美國實力和世界地位的削弱。 事實上，當世界其他國家看到美國奉行符合美國和全球利益的合理政策時，美國的威望和地位很可能會上升。 如果美國在與中國的關係中采取更明智的做法，它仍將是世界上最受尊敬的國家。

*

陳東尼 (Tony Chan) 是阿卜杜拉國王科技大學校長。

本·哈伯格 (Ben Harburg) 是全球投資公司 MSA Capital 的管理合夥人，也是美中關係全國委員會的董事會成員。

Kishore Mahbubani 是新加坡國立大學亞洲研究所的傑出研究員，也是《21 世紀的亞洲》一書的作者，這是一本開放獲取書籍，下載量已超過 325 萬次。 他也是《中國贏了嗎？》一書的作者。

資料來源：美國無法阻止中國的崛起——亞洲研究所

America Can't Stop China's Rise

Sep 16, 2023 By Kishore Mahbubani

https://mahbubani.net/america-cant-stop-chinas-rise/

There's little doubt that the American government has decided to slow China’s economic rise, most notably in the fields of technological development. To be sure, the Biden administration denies that these are its goals. Janet Yellen said on April 20, 2023, “China’s economic growth need not be incompatible with U.S. economic leadership. The United States remains the most dynamic and prosperous economy in the world. We have no reason to fear healthy economic competition with any country.” And Jake Sullivan said on April 27, 2023, “Our export controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance. We are simply ensuring that U.S. and allied technology is not used against us.”

Yet, in its deeds, the Biden administration has shown that its vision extend beyond those modest goals. It has not reversed the trade tariffs Trump imposed in 2018 on China – even though Presidential candidate Biden criticised them in July 2019, saying: “President Trump may think he’s being tough on China. All that he’s delivered as a consequence of that is American farmers, manufacturers and consumers losing and paying more.” Instead, the Biden administration has tried to increase the pressure on China by banning the export of chips, semiconductor equipment, and selected software. It has also persuaded its allies, like the Netherlands and Japan, to follow suit. More recently, on August 9, 2023, the Biden administration issued an executive order prohibiting American investments in China involving “sensitive technologies and products in the semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence sectors” which “pose a particularly acute national security threat because of their potential to significantly advance the military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled capabilities” of China.

All these actions confirm that the American government is trying to stop China’s growth. Yet, the big question is whether America can succeed in this campaign—and the answer is probably not. Fortunately, it is not too late for the United States to reorient its China policy toward an approach that would better serve Americans—and the rest of the world.

America’s decision to slow China’s technological development is akin to the folly revealed by the old cliché: closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Modern China has shown many times that China’s technological development can’t be halted.

Since the creation of the PRC in 1949, several efforts have been made to limit China’s access to or stop its development in various critical technologies, including nuclear weapons, space, satellite communication, GPS, semiconductors, supercomputers, and artificial intelligence. The US has also tried to curb China’s market dominance in 5G, commercial drones, and electric vehicles. Throughout history, unilateral or extraterritorial enforcement efforts to curtail China’s technological rise have failed and, in the current context, are creating irreparable damage to long-standing US geopolitical partnerships. In 1993 the Clinton Administration tried to restrict China’s access to satellite technology. Today, China has 541 satellites in space and is launching a competitor to Starlink.

The same principle played out with GPS. When America restricted China’s access to its geospatial data system in 1999, China simply built its own parallel BeiDou Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) system in one of the first waves of major technological decoupling. In some measures, BeiDou is today better than GPS. It is the largest GNSS in the world, with 45 satellites to GPS’s 31, and is thus able to provide more signals in most global capitals. It is supported by 120 ground stations, resulting in greater accuracy, and has more advanced signal features such as two-way messaging. Other nations have also previously tried and failed to block China’s technical rise. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR withheld nuclear weapons technology from China, China launched its own ‘Manhattan Project’ in the early 1960s and succeeded in testing its first nuclear weapon by 1964. Russian nuclear leverage over China ended that day.

Many of the measures taken by the Biden administration against China were also executed without factoring in China’s capacity to retaliate. While China does not physically construct many truly irreplaceable components of the American tech stack, they are keenly aware of the importance of their raw materials inputs (rare earths) and demand (revenue generation) in fuelling the American innovation ecosystem and are now using them as leverage. In the current tit-for-tat dynamic, China will start squeezing these two critical ends of the value chain in response to American technology and capital export restrictions. China’s July ban of the gallium and germanium exports was merely an opening shot across the bow to remind America (and its aligned allies) of China’s dominance in the rare earths and critical metals space. The country has a near monopoly in the processing of magnesium, bismuth, tungsten, graphite, silicon, vanadium, fluorspar, tellurium, indium, antimony, barite, zinc, and tin. China also dominates in midstream processing for materials essential to most of America’s current and future technology aspirations such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper, which are critical for the rapidly developing EV industry globally.

While America and other neutral countries have mineral reserves of many of these materials, it would be naïve to believe that one can simply flip a switch on production. It will take at least 3 to 5 years just to build the requisite extraction and processing infrastructure. This is to say nothing for recruiting and training skilled labour, or receiving requisite operational and environmental permits for such activities. Both could prove impossible. The processing of rare earths is a highly toxic and environmentally destructive endeavour. It’s unlikely such approvals will be granted. If Arizona is struggling to find qualified workers for its TSMC Fab, and to address domestic union opposition to importing foreign skilled labour, it’s unlikely that America can develop similar capabilities for material processing. Along the way, China gets to play kingmaker in how it doles out access to its processed materials, likely restricting supply to American technology and defence giants. The failure to factor in China’s retaliatory capacities indicates that the US doesn’t have a well-thought-out and comprehensive approach to dealing with China.

Potentially even more disastrously, American measures to deprive China access to the most advanced chips could damage America’s large chip-making companies more than it hurts China. China is the largest consumer of semiconductors in the world. Over the past ten years, China has been importing massive amounts of chips from American companies. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, China-based firms imported US$70.5 billion worth of semiconductors from American firms in 2019, representing approximately 37% of these companies’ global sales. Some American companies, like Qorvo, Texas Instruments, and Broadcom, derive about half of their revenues from China. 60% of Qualcomm’s revenues, a quarter of Intel’s revenues, and a fifth of Nvidia’s sales are from the Chinese market. It’s no wonder that the CEOs of these three companies recently went to Washington to warn that US industry leadership could be harmed by the export controls. American firms will also be hurt by retaliatory actions from China, such as China’s May 2023 ban on chips from US-based Micron Technology. China accounts for over 25% of Micron’s sales.

The massive revenue surpluses generated by these sales to China were ploughed into R&D efforts which, in turn, kept American chip companies ahead of the game. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that if the US were to ban semiconductor sales to China completely, US companies would lose US$83 billion in annual revenues and would have to cut 124,000 jobs. They would also have to cut their annual R&D budgets by at least US$12 billion, and their capital spending by US$13 billion. This would make it even more difficult for them to remain competitive on the global scale in the long run. American semiconductor firms are painfully aware that US actions against China in the chips arena will harm their interests more than Chinese interests. The US Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released a statement on July 17, 2023 saying that Washington’s repeated steps “to impose overly broad, ambiguous, and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the U.S. semiconductor industry’s competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China”, and called on the Biden administration not to implement further restrictions without more extensive engagement with semiconductor industry representatives and experts.

The Chips Act cannot subsidise the American semiconductor industry indefinitely, and there is no other global demand base to replace China. Other chip producing nations will inevitably break ranks and sell to China (as they have historically) and the American actions will be for naught. And, in banning the export of chips and other core inputs to China, America handed China its war plan years ahead of the battle. China is being goaded into building self-sufficiency far earlier than they would have otherwise. Prior to the ZTE and Huawei components bans, China was content to continue purchasing American chips and focusing on the front-end hardware. Peter Wennick, CEO of ASML, states that China is already leading in key applications and demand for semiconductors. Wennick writes, “The roll-out of the telecommunication infrastructure, battery technology, that’s the sweet spot of mid-critical and mature semiconductors, and that’s where China without any exception is leading.”

A sleeping giant was awoken by short-sighted American protectionist policies. America now faces the short-term threat of loss of critical revenue that fuelled the R&D that made it an innovation leader and the long-term inevitability that China will build its own full scale semiconductor ecosystem. The ability of Huawei to launch the Mate 60 Pro, a new smartphone powered by a domestically produced 5G chip and operating system, despite severe American sanctions on the firm illustrates how unwise American policies have been in trying to stop China’s technological growth and development.

Since America is unlikely to stop China’s technological growth and development (and, indeed, is unlikely to stop China’s emergence as a peer global power), there is a more enlightened approach to engagement. It is best illustrated by Aesop’s fable, “The North Wind and the Sun”. In the story, the North Wind blows hard and fails to remove the traveller’s cloak. It is, rather, the warm rays of the sun persuade the traveller to remove his cloak.

It’s now widely held among American policymakers that America’s five-decade-long policy of engagement with China has failed. As Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner candidly state in their Foreign Affairs article, “Nearly half a century since Nixon’s first steps toward rapprochement, the record is increasingly clear that Washington once again put too much faith in its power to shape China’s trajectory. […] China has instead pursued its own course, belying a range of American expectations in the process.”

Certainly, if the policy of engagement was intended to transform China’s internal system of governance, it has failed. Yet, if this was the goal, it was an act of remarkable hubris for a 250-year-old Republic (with one quarter of China’s population) to believe that it could transform a 4,000-year-old civilisation to its liking. However, if the goal of American policy was to encourage the emergence of China as a “responsible stakeholder” (to use the words of Bob Zoellick), the policy may well have succeeded. A comprehensive study done by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, the American Friends Service Committee, and four independent researchers has documented that China’s behaviour was altered by various policies of engagement, particularly as it pertains to reducing climate change, improving public health, and global financial stability. Former State Department official Susan Thornton, who oversaw the study as Director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at NCAFP, said: “This audit of US-China diplomacy shows that we can make progress through negotiations and that China follows through on its commitments. The notion that engagement with China did not benefit the US is just not accurate.” Indeed, the record shows that there is wisdom contained in the moral of “The North Wind and the Sun”: “Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.”

One fundamental problem is that domestic politics in America are forcing American policymakers to take strident stands against China instead of pragmatic positions. For instance, sanctions preventing the Chinese Defence Minister, Li Shangfu, from travelling to the US are standing in the way of US-China defence dialogues to prevent military accidents. Yet, the hands of the US government are tied. It cannot lift sanctions, even if they have proved to be ineffective at securing American policy goals.

This is why the time has come for America to do a major re-evaluation of the methods it uses to secure foreign policy goals. Its go-to tactic of imposing sanctions has failed to either halt China’s technological development or influence China’s behaviour in any significant way – and most countries do not find that it is in their interests to go along with them. Are there more effective alternatives to sanctions?

In a statement explaining the Biden administration’s approach to China, Anthony Blinken said in May 2022: “we’ll compete with confidence; we’ll cooperate wherever we can; we’ll contest where we must.” We agree with this approach. Rather than undermining its own interests and fortifying a geopolitical and economic competitor, America should practice a more enlightened technology policy. The focus must be placed on initiatives that sustainably support and extend America’s innovation leadership, while surgically removing specific national security threats.

In lieu of a zero-sum framing of the US-China technology competition, a sustainable structure for collaboration is beneficial to both countries and humanity. Most Western emissions reductions targets cannot be met without participation from China, who hold many of the patents and core inputs for solar, wind and electric battery power. Joint research programs, clinical trials and data sets are critical for solving chronic global health issues like cancer. Decoupled technology ecosystems not only retard advancement, but also create other endemic risks resulting from parallel development and unilateral regulation. Unchecked growth in potential doomsday technologies like AI or nuclear immediately comes to mind. Continuing to welcome scientific talent from China to study, work and settle down in the United States is beneficial for the scientific progress of both countries as well. These scientists can act as a bridge towards scientific collaboration between the United States and China.

The American government should also consider rebooting in full all the high-level dialogues that had been initiated by the Bush administration, continued by the Obama administration, and ended by the Trump administration. A resumption of high-level dialogues, together with the establishment of a high-level science and technology dialogue bringing together the top scientists from both countries, could well result in more positive outcomes for American long-term national interests.

Initially, this great power collaboration could be focused on areas where both sides have common long-term interests (like climate change, pandemic preparedness, global economic stability, education). When basic levels of trust are established, dialogue and cooperation can be expanded step by step. None of these moves will result in a diminution of American power and standing in the world. Indeed, America’s prestige and standing could well rise as the rest of the world sees America pursuing reasonable policies that are serving both American and global interests. America will remain the most admired country in the world, if it pursues a wiser course with China.

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Tony Chan is the President of the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology.

Ben Harburg is a Managing Partner at global investment firm MSA Capital and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Committee on United States China Relations.

Kishore Mahbubani, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, NUS, is the author of The Asian 21st Century, an open access book which has been downloaded over 3.25 million times. He is also the author of Has China Won?

Source: America Can’t Stop China’s Rise – The Asia Research Institute