China is currently outperforming the United States in the strategic competition that will define the balance of power for years to come - the race to nurture domestic sources of strength, a Brookings Institution fellow has argued in Foreign Affairs, as "Hvylya" reports.
Ryan Hass, a former NSC director for China and director of the Brookings Thornton China Center, writes that the Trump-Xi trade war truce was "effectively an agreement to buy time." What each side does with that time, he argues, "will determine where U.S.-Chinese competition goes - and who ends up with the upper hand."
Beijing's intentions are clear. China's new Five-Year Plan, adopted in March, focuses on reducing reliance on foreign technology and imports while accelerating domestic industrial modernization and technology innovation. The plan targets dominance in robotics, 6G mobile communication, and embodied artificial intelligence - meaning AI integrated into physical objects such as robots and drones.
Chinese leaders view this "portfolio approach to spurring technological advances as having better odds for national progress than the United States' all-in bet on artificial general intelligence," Hass writes. Beijing's goal is to lock in China's centrality to the global economy and reduce its vulnerability to Washington's export controls, sanctions, and investment restrictions.
The United States, by contrast, "has a less centralized plan for accelerating broader economic growth," according to the analysis. While the Trump administration has correctly identified economic and technological power as the foundations of twenty-first-century national security, the country "has again found itself drawn into a costly conflict abroad while it practices fiscal indiscipline at home." Hass urges Washington to find a similar sense of urgency - securing supply chains, speeding up industrial production, and pushing forward policies that spur innovation.
Previously: "Truly Amusing": Chinese Commentators Mock US Ability to Challenge Beijing After Iran.