By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-10-09/Chinese-technological-advancement-has-matured-enough-to-be-clogged-KDbzMJhdy8/index.html
Courtesy of post-World War II devastation and high-skilled immigrants, US became undisputed global leader in innovation. From transistors to personal computers, from the development of internet to the evolution of smart phone, America was the frontrunner in worldwide technological transformation – Aspen Cybersecurity Group said in its recent report.
Although the successful launch of Soviet Union’s Sputnik-I on 04-October-1957 dropped “bombshells” on the US administration and shook the Americans as they witnessed a “red baby moon” orbiting the earth, however it eventually won the space race to ensure its technological dominance.
But the unrivaled US technology ascendancy is now fading quickly. Due to Trump’s restrictive and protectionist policies, the US has mislaid its technological leadership as it is not more a favorite destination of the highly-skilled and highly-educated immigrants who have been the beacon of the American technological advancement.
American physical infrastructure is aging and would need about $10 trillion in the next decade to restore its integrity, the study further said. In the proposed budget of FY2020, the Trump administration has sliced the foundational research funding by 10% and applied research by 14%. In contrast, China has doubled its research & development (R&D) spending to in the last five years and poured a record $254 billion in 2017 only.
The Findings by the non-partisan organization comprising former US government officials, Capitol Hill leaders, and industry experts distinctly emphasized that the United States has fallen way behind in technological race with other countries, especially China.
US has reached to the sort of embarrassing situation mainly as a consequence of unnecessary foreign military engagements in the aftermath of 9/11. Nonetheless, Trump has been trying to shroud the US failures by slating the Chinese economic “model” that is based on “intellectual property theft, state subsidies, currency manipulation, and forced technology transfer.”
But the history outrightly snubs the claims made by the US president. The fact remains since China never had any aggressive military ambitions or expanding its hegemony across the world, it diverted all its investments and resources on impoverishment elimination and forthcoming future opportunities in the fields of science and technology.
Years of the insistent Chinese labors paid off and China, with 22%, surpassed the US (10%) in producing science, technology, engineering, and technology (STEM) graduates. The increased number of STEM-educated employees allowed China to rapidly excel in the area of science and technology.
By capitalizing on producing highly-educated employees, increased spending on R&D of about $278 billion in 2018, and investments on future technologies – China’s has transformed itself from an agrarian economy to industrial dynamo in very short span of time, with hi-tech manufacturing up by 11.7% in 2018 as compared to the prior year.
The US now fears to concede its decades-old technology dominance to China. Nevertheless, Beijing has never claimed to pursue the global dominance though has emphatically implemented Made in China 2025 plan that continue to transform its transportation, telecommunications, and communications sectors, which has yielded world-class conglomerates such as Huawei and ZTE.
US frights about China’s replacing it as a global technology leader bared when the Trump administration slapped curbs on China’s technology giants, Huawei and ZTE. Thus, Trump’s antagonism and harsh rhetoric as well as the subsequent sanctions on these conglomerates had more of political repercussions than the so-called national security risks.
As the European, Japan, Korea, and some other emerging nations have also invested heavily in their modern infrastructure and India was the leading country that was producing STEM graduates – targeting the Chinese hi-tech companies only described how serious is the US is about perceiving China as its strategic competitor.
For Trump, it is his legitimate economic strategy to coerce Apple to manufacture its Mac Pro computers’ production in the US to rescue American jobs or direct $28 billion in aid to American farmers hurt by trade war. But if China subsidizes its industry to save jobs of millions of Chinese, Trump gives lame excuse that Chinese “model” was relying on state subsidies, currency manipulation, and forced technology transfer.
It was also quite surprising to accuse China – that is gearing up to lead the global innovation and future technologies – for intellectual property theft from the US, which now has an outmoded technology infrastructure. In fact, Trump is making all-out attempts to impede Chinese technological growth by preventing its tech companies from operating in the US.
But US acrimonious restrictions on Chinese companies are not stopping their sensational growth. As Huawei and other Chinese unicorn startups are lessening their reliance on the US and started to develop their own chips, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said that the company will soon start the production of US-free components 5G base stations after initial trials in August and September.
SO, Trump’s tech war on China is backfiring as the tactic has forced Beijing and Moscow to bolster their sci-tech cooperation. During Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visit to the Kremlin last month, both sides announced to upgrade their scientific and technological innovation cooperation.
In a joint communiqué signed by the two sides, China and Russia agreed to scale up cooperation in a wide range of areas from technology and innovation to trade and investment. As the top diplomats from Beijing and Moscow agreed to increase compatibility and interoperability of their satellite navigational systems BeiDou and GLONASS, the sides further agreed to better protect the intellectual property.
The deliberations about protection of intellectual property points the precedence Chinese technology has achieved now. Nevertheless again, China did not seek any dominance or pursue to catch up America but expects the US as well not to gratuitously sanction its companies in an effort to clog Chinese technological advancement.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)":
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-10-09/Chinese-technological-advancement-has-matured-enough-to-be-clogged-KDbzMJhdy8/index.html
Courtesy of post-World War II devastation and high-skilled immigrants, US became undisputed global leader in innovation. From transistors to personal computers, from the development of internet to the evolution of smart phone, America was the frontrunner in worldwide technological transformation – Aspen Cybersecurity Group said in its recent report.
Although the successful launch of Soviet Union’s Sputnik-I on 04-October-1957 dropped “bombshells” on the US administration and shook the Americans as they witnessed a “red baby moon” orbiting the earth, however it eventually won the space race to ensure its technological dominance.
But the unrivaled US technology ascendancy is now fading quickly. Due to Trump’s restrictive and protectionist policies, the US has mislaid its technological leadership as it is not more a favorite destination of the highly-skilled and highly-educated immigrants who have been the beacon of the American technological advancement.
American physical infrastructure is aging and would need about $10 trillion in the next decade to restore its integrity, the study further said. In the proposed budget of FY2020, the Trump administration has sliced the foundational research funding by 10% and applied research by 14%. In contrast, China has doubled its research & development (R&D) spending to in the last five years and poured a record $254 billion in 2017 only.
The Findings by the non-partisan organization comprising former US government officials, Capitol Hill leaders, and industry experts distinctly emphasized that the United States has fallen way behind in technological race with other countries, especially China.
US has reached to the sort of embarrassing situation mainly as a consequence of unnecessary foreign military engagements in the aftermath of 9/11. Nonetheless, Trump has been trying to shroud the US failures by slating the Chinese economic “model” that is based on “intellectual property theft, state subsidies, currency manipulation, and forced technology transfer.”
But the history outrightly snubs the claims made by the US president. The fact remains since China never had any aggressive military ambitions or expanding its hegemony across the world, it diverted all its investments and resources on impoverishment elimination and forthcoming future opportunities in the fields of science and technology.
Years of the insistent Chinese labors paid off and China, with 22%, surpassed the US (10%) in producing science, technology, engineering, and technology (STEM) graduates. The increased number of STEM-educated employees allowed China to rapidly excel in the area of science and technology.
By capitalizing on producing highly-educated employees, increased spending on R&D of about $278 billion in 2018, and investments on future technologies – China’s has transformed itself from an agrarian economy to industrial dynamo in very short span of time, with hi-tech manufacturing up by 11.7% in 2018 as compared to the prior year.
The US now fears to concede its decades-old technology dominance to China. Nevertheless, Beijing has never claimed to pursue the global dominance though has emphatically implemented Made in China 2025 plan that continue to transform its transportation, telecommunications, and communications sectors, which has yielded world-class conglomerates such as Huawei and ZTE.
US frights about China’s replacing it as a global technology leader bared when the Trump administration slapped curbs on China’s technology giants, Huawei and ZTE. Thus, Trump’s antagonism and harsh rhetoric as well as the subsequent sanctions on these conglomerates had more of political repercussions than the so-called national security risks.
As the European, Japan, Korea, and some other emerging nations have also invested heavily in their modern infrastructure and India was the leading country that was producing STEM graduates – targeting the Chinese hi-tech companies only described how serious is the US is about perceiving China as its strategic competitor.
For Trump, it is his legitimate economic strategy to coerce Apple to manufacture its Mac Pro computers’ production in the US to rescue American jobs or direct $28 billion in aid to American farmers hurt by trade war. But if China subsidizes its industry to save jobs of millions of Chinese, Trump gives lame excuse that Chinese “model” was relying on state subsidies, currency manipulation, and forced technology transfer.
It was also quite surprising to accuse China – that is gearing up to lead the global innovation and future technologies – for intellectual property theft from the US, which now has an outmoded technology infrastructure. In fact, Trump is making all-out attempts to impede Chinese technological growth by preventing its tech companies from operating in the US.
But US acrimonious restrictions on Chinese companies are not stopping their sensational growth. As Huawei and other Chinese unicorn startups are lessening their reliance on the US and started to develop their own chips, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said that the company will soon start the production of US-free components 5G base stations after initial trials in August and September.
SO, Trump’s tech war on China is backfiring as the tactic has forced Beijing and Moscow to bolster their sci-tech cooperation. During Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visit to the Kremlin last month, both sides announced to upgrade their scientific and technological innovation cooperation.
In a joint communiqué signed by the two sides, China and Russia agreed to scale up cooperation in a wide range of areas from technology and innovation to trade and investment. As the top diplomats from Beijing and Moscow agreed to increase compatibility and interoperability of their satellite navigational systems BeiDou and GLONASS, the sides further agreed to better protect the intellectual property.
The deliberations about protection of intellectual property points the precedence Chinese technology has achieved now. Nevertheless again, China did not seek any dominance or pursue to catch up America but expects the US as well not to gratuitously sanction its companies in an effort to clog Chinese technological advancement.