RED ALERT: China Is Winning the Great 21st Century Tech War
RED ALERT: China Is Winning the Great 21st Century Tech War
by Gordon G. Chang for Gatestone Institute
China, pursuant to [its 14th Five-Year Plan]… will increase spending 7% per year to achieve “major breakthroughs” in areas of “frontier technology.” Specifically, the country, will devote resources to artificial intelligence; quantum information; semiconductors; brain science; genomics and biotech; clinical medicine and health; and deep space, deep sea, and deep earth.
In addition to theft, [China’s leaders] adopted a determined, methodical, and disciplined approach to developing their own innovations. Beijing’s efforts to master key technologies have been massive, state-directed, and government-funded. Government funding has been China’s key tactic…. Ye Yujiang, the head of basic research at the Ministry of Science and Technology, just announced that China’s spending on basic research nearly doubled during the just-completed 13th Five-Year Plan.
Beijing’s effort depends on large, top-down projects. Take the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences, a multi-billion-dollar facility spread over 86 acres…. It is the world’s largest quantum research lab.
As a practical matter, the U.S. government has not paid much attention to the development of tech in recent decades.
[I]n building the world’s 5G networks—the fifth generation of wireless communications that will permit an unprecedented connectivity of devices—the [U.S.] let-the-market-do-it approach has been close to a total failure. There are, for instance, no American companies that compete with China’s Huawei Technologies, which President Trump in August 2019 labeled “a national security threat.””The threat of Chinese leadership in key technology areas is a national crisis and needs to be dealt with directly, now.” — Dr. Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief executive and chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, February 23, 2021.China believes it is on track to take over the world.
At the ongoing “Two Sessions” in Beijing, the Communist Party has publicly told us how it will accomplish its ambitious goal. If the Chinese ruling party succeeds, the rest of the 21st century will be painted only in shades of red.
Fortunately, America is beginning to mobilize itself. Americans, however, need to act, immediately. Tech is the real arms race of our era.
On March 5, at the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature, Premier Li Keqiang announced the 14th Five-Year Plan, which begins this year.
China, pursuant to the plan, will increase spending 7% per year to achieve “major breakthroughs” in areas of “frontier technology.” Specifically, the country, will devote resources to artificial intelligence; quantum information; semiconductors; brain science; genomics and biotech; clinical medicine and health; and deep space, deep sea, and deep earth.
Moreover, Beijing is also talking about the Sci-Tech Innovation 2030 Agendaand the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035. Officials are silent when it comes to Xi Jinping’s now-notorious Made in China 2025 initiative — the plan is on its face a violation of the country’s trade obligations — but there is no question that the effort remains underway nonetheless.
China is going all-in on what Wang Zhigang, the head of the Ministry of Science and Technology, called the development of a “new ecology” for innovation. In that ecology, China has been able to lead the world in important areas, such as “unhackable” quantum communications. Moreover, the country is not far behind — if it is behind at all — in quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
China’s recent progress has been impressive. A decade ago, Beijing was not considered a tech contender.
There should be no surprise how Chinese leaders made their regime a technology powerhouse. In addition to theft, they adopted a determined, methodical and disciplined approach to developing their own innovations. Beijing’s efforts to master key technologies have been massive, state-directed and government-funded. For a deeper dive visit Gatestone.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.