I.  Introduction

The U.S. government has already characterized China as a “strategic competitor,” and has taken technology competition with China as one of the key means for breaking the deadlock. Strategic competition among great powers has now entered an “era of all-element confrontation” (Zhang Cheng et al., 2021) and an “era of techno-politics” (Huang Rihan et al., 2022), and China and the United States are more inclined to comprehensively mobilize of all kinds of policy instruments to fight for “technology power” (Zhang Qianyu, 2020). Such “technology power” can be further interpreted as the combination of technological power, institutional power, and interpretative power (Ren Lin, 2013; Huang Rihan et al., 2022). Technological power reflects a country’s technological comparative advantage. In an era where science and technology are attached with political and security-related importance, a country can rely on its monopolistic power in advanced technologies to not only achieve military deterrence, but also gain the initiative for developing its economy by leveraging its central position in the global supply chain and international division of labor system. Institutional power is reflected most prominently in a country’s discourse power [话语权 (voice, influence)] within the international system, e.g., whether it can lead the negotiating agenda, or dominate the formulation of technical standards and international rules. Institutional power may benefit a country in terms of predicting and understanding different countries’ actions within important international mechanisms and institutions, reducing its external transaction costs, which helps to create an external environment favorable for its development. Interpretative power translates into the “legitimacy” of a country’s actions and mindsets of its international engagement and reflects a country’s ability to shape and disseminate specific values. In trade activities, such legitimacy usually appears in the form of concepts about trade, such as “free trade,” “competitive neutrality,” “fair trade,” and so on. Technological power is the foundation for the existence of institutional power and interpretative power, and institutional power provides the space for the maintenance and development of technological power, while interpretative power “endorses” the first two. The three influence each other, and all are indispensable. Based on the above theory, this paper intends to elucidate U.S. science and technology policies toward China through the three dimensions of “competition over power,” “competition over order,” and “competition over values,” and specifically explores the obstacles and challenges faced by the United States in the process of policy implementation, thereby proposing policy countermeasures for China.

II. The Three Aspects of U.S. Technology Competition with China

Technological competition initiated by the United States against China up to the present can be categorized into three aspects: competition over power, with the main goal of seizing technological power; competition over order, with the goal of obtaining institutional power; and competition over values, with the goal of winning interpretative power.

(i) Competition over Power: Promoting a “Small Yard, High Fence” form of “Decoupling” and Fostering Industrial Competitiveness

1. Main Initiatives for the Competition over Power

According to their characteristics, policies launched by the United States at the power competition level mainly consist of “defensive policies,” for which the exclusive controls of technologies are the mainstay, and “offensive policies,” for which constructive industrial policies are the mainstay. The former is aimed at inhibiting technology diffusion and increasing the cost of innovation and development for China, and serves as a direct means of vying for technological power; the latter focuses on fostering industrial competitiveness and high-quality human resources, and is an endogenous driving force that facilitates the competition over technological power.

With regard to “defensive policies” mainly based on technology controls, such a category can be further subdivided into import controls, export controls, investment controls, and talent controls according to the differences in the fields and items of control. Tariff remains the main means of the U.S. when it comes to restricting imports. Technology-intensive products such as medical devices, biopharmaceuticals, and new materials are the areas “hardest hit” by U.S.-imposed tariffs, with the restrictions focusing on the industries involved in “Made in China 2025.” In addition, a series of tariffs imposed by the United States against China on the basis of “Section 301” investigations also aroused concerns. In terms of export controls, the United States mainly focuses on export regulation and export enforcement of military-civil dual-use and militarily sensitive items. It has set up specific review bodies to comprehensively coordinate the regulation, enforcement, and licensing of civilian and military goods exports. For example, for the export control of military-civil dual-use items, agencies such as the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) under the United States Department of Commerce are responsible, under the authority of the law, for technical control measures such as control lists and export licensing. For investment controls, the Foreign Investment Security Review System (FISRS) is a typical measure for this end. The FISRS is chaired by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which carries out the review work. Once a security threat [in a merger] is identified, the CFIUS will recommend the involved enterprise to take “mitigation measures,” or withdraw the merger application. In addition, talents, as one of the most important elements of production, are also subject to special attention. For China, the U.S. has been strictly managing and monitoring the flow of talent by restricting the entry of talent, adding extra conditions on financial assistance, and implementing the principle of “deemed export,” etc.

With regard to “offensive policies” that are mainly pillared by industrial policies, these can be subdivided according to functional differences into industrial technology policy, industrial organization policy, and other industrial policies. Zhou Jianjun (2017) points out that industrial technology policies will directly affect the scientific and technological R&D sectors through, e.g., R&D subsidies, venture capital, credit incentives, infrastructure building, and other aspects; industrial organization policies focus on optimizing the market structure and improving the competitiveness of enterprises, and mainly concern antitrust policies and related laws to maintain market competition and industrial rationalization. In addition, there are also some industrial policies aimed at promoting or improving the economic operating environment, such as the U.S. government’s series of investment policies based on the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.

2. Main Features of the Competition over Power

(1) As the U.S. is shifting from single to “multi-pronged” sanctions in recent years, the U.S. measures for technology controls and sanctions have shown a tendency to be coordinated and synchronized. For example, with regard to investment in critical technologies and infrastructure, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) and the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) stand for a dual review system, with the “critical technologies” areas reviewed under the former being consistent with the ECRA’s scope of jurisdiction concerning “emerging and basic technologies”, thereby ensuring the comprehensiveness of the technological blockade (Liu et al., 2020). In addition, in the communications industry, government agencies will participate in the enforcement of sanctions together with independent agencies authorized by them. Since 2021, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in cooperation with the U.S. government, has repeatedly cracked down on Chinese entities on grounds of maintaining national security, and has set up a blacklist since the Chinese entities pose “an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.”¹ As of October 2022, there were nine Chinese companies and one Russian company on the list, including three major Chinese telecommunications carriers and leading Chinese technology companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

(2) There is a shift from “full decoupling” to “small yard, high fence.” Unlike the Trump administration with its policy tilting towards “full decoupling,” the Biden administration has shifted to a policy of “small yard, high fence” since it took office, framing the “small yard” as technologies related to national security, while the “high fence” refers to the strategic measures necessary to safeguard the core technologies within the “small yard.” Sacks (2019) argues that the screened-out national security-related technologies should meet the following three characteristics: They are closely related to the military field; they are relatively scarce in China; and the United States is at the cutting edge of the field. Although the definition of “small yard” remains controversial, the Biden administration has been gradually delimiting the scope of the “small yard” through the “100-Day Report” supply chain security assessments² and the screening measures under the Critical and Emerging Technologies List (CETL).³

(3) “Defensive” and “offensive” policies are being combined. Since the Biden administration took office, it has pushed a number of innovation-related bills, especially for the semiconductor industry. The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 signed in August 2022⁴ will provide the U.S. semiconductor industry with 52.7 billion U.S. dollars in funding over a five-year period, while also offering tax credits and other policy incentives. It specifically states that enterprises receiving subsidies under the Act will be prohibited for ten years from achieving any major deal with China that might enhance China’s semiconductor manufacturing ability. ⁵ As one can see, the U.S. government is seeking a combination of technological regulation and industrial policy, forcing multinational enterprises to choose between two countries to ensure that the United States will stay ahead of China in the competition for technological power.

(ii) Competition over Order: Adopting “Double Standards” and Building Alliances

1. Main Initiatives for the Competition over Order

(1) Fighting for the right to set technology standards. This is mainly reflected in its participation in and infiltration of international standardization activities. The first measure includes actively sending domestic talents to international standardization organizations, and undertaking and leading more secretariat work of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC); the second involves using ISO as a platform to promote the United States’ paradigms and principles (Han Kewei, 2006); and the third includes reaching bilateral technology cooperation agreements through the channel of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and other national standards assessment agencies, thereby forming a “global radiation” of U.S. standards.

(2) Fighting for the rule-making power. On the one hand, the “U.S.-style template” has been promoted globally through bilateral and regional agreements. For example, in the digital trade area, the U.S. has been trying to include the principle of free flow of cross-border data in trade agreements, with the aim of leveraging its technology power in the digital economy field to establish a vertical international division of labor system in the digital economy, thereby obtaining institutional power and consolidating its position at the top of the global value chain (Lan Qingxin et al., 2019). On the other hand, it utilizes divisive issues to divide the interests of China and those of other countries or regions, dominate the negotiation agenda, and force China, which has been isolated from other countries, to accept the negotiation outcomes, or keep China outside of the negotiation framework. Examples include adding a “poison pill” clause to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, issuing the “Seventh Joint Statement of the Trilateral Meeting of the Trade Ministers of Japan, the United States, and the European Union” on WTO subsidies rules, and so on.

(3) Building alliance relationships. Alliance relationship building by the United States is manifested in the use of discriminatory preferential policies, technical standards, and trade concepts, as ways to win allies and jointly exert pressure and restrictions on emerging countries with technological power. “Technology alliances,” “supply chain alliances,” and “values alliances” are common forms of alliances. Technology alliances usually appear in emerging technology fields, both in the form of national-level alliances represented by the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) and enterprise-level alliances represented by the Semiconductor Industry Alliance of America (SIAC). Supply chain alliances are usually embedded in international mechanisms established through high-level strategic dialogues, such as the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council established at the U.S.-EU Summit, the U.S.-Japan Competitiveness and Resilience (CoRe) Partnership established at the U.S.-Japan Summit, and the U.S.-South Korea Joint Working Group established at the U.S.-South Korea Summit. Values alliances are based on a common philosophy and usually work in concert with supply chain alliances and technology alliances.

2. Main Features of the Competition over Order

(1) Double standards are applied. First, the United States applies a double standard separately to its strong and weak industries. On the one hand, the United States will raise the standards on intellectual property rights, labor rights, environmental standards, and other societal rules based on U.S. domestic laws, areas in which the United States has a comparative advantage, and “strictly guards against technology spillovers.” On the other hand, it is relatively passive when it comes to the agricultural and traditional manufacturing sectors. It also attempts to delay WTO dispute settlement mechanism negotiations, and obstruct the adoption of measures on relevant issues. Secondly, it applies a double standard to developed and developing countries. It has no rules to promote technology transfers to developing countries, but only rules to protect the intellectual property rights of developed countries, and for developing countries that have intellectual property rights with comparative advantages, its standards for their protection are extremely low. Thirdly, it applies a double standard to U.S. transnational corporations and Chinese enterprises. For example, in the field of trade and investment, the United States calls for “behind-the-border measures” that would cede part of nations’ sovereignty and constrain the Chinese government’s support for local enterprises, but never mentions the policy support for multinational corporations and high, government-funded subsidies for high-tech industries.

(2) Pushing international adoption of its domestic rules. Ever since the United States formulated its national standardization strategy in 1998, making international standards reflect American technologies’ criteria has been the core of its strategy (Han, 2006). This strategic style of “internationalization of U.S. standards” is also reflected in trade, investment, and other fields. The original WTO provisions have also originated from U.S. domestic legislation and bilateral trade agreements signed by the United States (Li Wei et al., 2019). In recent years, the United States has been actively participating in the formulation of international standards and rules for emerging technologies such as the digital economy, leveraging its mature domestic legislative practice. Although these provisions partly reflect the objective needs of technological and social progress, they mainly serve the national interests of the United States and are not applicable to all countries.

(iii) Competition over Values: Seeking Conceptual Identification and Promoting U.S.-Style Values

1. Main Initiatives for Competition over Values

(1) Building alliances based on values barriers. The competition over values initiated by the U.S. tends to provide rational defenses of policy ideas through value guidance and public opinion management, so as to demonstrate the legitimacy of its economic and political activities. These “values alliances” often work in tandem with “supply chain alliances” and “technology alliances.” For example, the United States’ Indo-Pacific Strategy released by the White House in February 2022 seeks to establish exclusive partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region for the digital economy, supply chain security, and fair trade based on identification with the values of “democracy,” “openness,” and “interconnectedness.”⁶

(2) Attempting to use economic sanctions as a way to address value issues. In recent years, U.S. economic sanctions against China have gradually been extended to values issues such as “democracy,” “human rights” and “fairness.” For example, since 2018, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has actively responded to the U.S. federal government’s public opinion guidance and issued a number of Withhold Release Orders (WRO) against Chinese products such as cotton fabrics, computer parts, and solar panels. As of September 2022, CBP had 54 products on its WRO list, of which 35 come from China. ⁷

2. Main Features of the Competition over Values

(1) Policies related to competition over values are carried out in a continuous manner. A policy regime using “democratic” identification as a link to unite allies through non-military means has been visible since the Trump era. The “National Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology” released by the Trump administration in October 2020 proposed the development of “worldwide technology norms, standards, and governance models that reflect democratic values and interests.” In April 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also put forward the “5G Clean Path,” proclaiming that an alliance would be built in the field of 5G with “democracy” as its bond, and he urged allies to abandon the equipment of Chinese IT suppliers represented by Huawei and ZTE. The Biden administration has continued this policy trend, mobilizing domestic and international support through various sectors, including government, think tanks, and the media, to build a “technology alliance” based on “democratic” values.

(2) The U.S. government’s guidance of public opinion on U.S.-China relations is characterized by partisan influences. Compared with the Republican Party, the Biden administration is more inclined to describe China-U.S. relations in terms of “competition” rather than a zero-sum game of a “hostile” relationship. According to a survey conducted in the United States by the Pew Research Center in March 2021, 80% of Democratic respondents did not believe that the China-U.S. relationship was a “hostile” one, while more than half of the Republican respondents held the opposing view.⁸ Since the Biden administration took office, the proportion of U.S. (survey) respondents who believe that China and the United States have a “competitive” rather than “hostile” relationship has risen from 54% in 2021 to 62% by March 2022 (Huang et al., 2022). This suggests that the public opinion guidance of the U.S. political parties has a certain degree of influence over the personal perceptions of the U.S. public. The U.S. government’s “characterization” of the U.S.-China relationship will also affect the economic and trade engagement and technology exchanges between the United States and China to a certain extent.

Generally speaking, the United States’ initiatives at the level of competition over power, are based mainly on targeted and linked domestic institutional systems; at the level of competition over order, they are more focused on reflecting the United States’ national interests in the international institutional environment; and at the level of competition over values, they are focused on achieving the “universalization” of American values. Table 1 summarizes the main initiatives, characteristics, and representative measures of U.S. technological competition with China at the above three levels.

III. The Dilemma Facing U.S. Technology Competition with China

It is only by relying on the long-standing accumulation of technological and economic advantages, as well as the current deficit of emerging technology governance and rules (Huang Rihan et al., 2022), that the United States has been able to launch technology competition with China along the above three dimensions. However, it may not be able to achieve the expected results due to constraints caused by internal and external situations.

(i) Difficulties in Reconciling Domestic Interests in the United States

(1) The redundancy in its bureaucratic system negatively affects the efficiency of policy implementation by government agencies. Due to overlapping responsibilities, the work coordination problem has been an issue in the U.S. executive branch characterized by constant relapse (Wilson, 2019). Since the Biden administration took office, it has established several new executive departments. The functional responsibilities of different agencies have become less distinct, making friction over work an unavoidable possibility. For example, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 proposes that the Department of Defense should establish a CHIPS Program Office and CHIPS Research and Development Office in the National Institute of Standards and Technology. As the new department needs to coordinate closely with the Office of the Trade Representative, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, it is less efficient in terms of policy implementation.

(2) Bills become stalled due to internal partisan divisions. Since the Biden administration came to power, factional divisions within the Democratic Party have reappeared. The more radical progressives and the far left opposed the moderates on the issue of budget and its allocation, which led to the repeated shelving of the Endless Frontier Act. The CHIPS and Science Act, passed in August 2022, was precisely the result of numerous games and negotiations.

(3) Interest group conflicts have limited the implementation of policies. The U.S. science and technology industry is not a monolithic whole. Conflicts arise even among different companies in the same industry due to the uneven distribution of preferential industrial policies, resulting in the halted progress of related policies and legislation design. The “restraining order” on Huawei’s sales has triggered opposition from multinational enterprises such as Qualcomm and AMD, which are important suppliers of chips, as well as defiance from the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association, and disagreements have even appeared within government agencies (Davis, 2020). On the eve of the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, companies such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and AMD also considered opposing the bill because it favored chipmakers led by Intel Corporation and had little policy support for chip designers.

(ii) A “Hard Decoupling” for U.S. Technology Would be Difficult to Achieve

(1) A “hard decoupling” would lead to massive business and job losses. The Boston Consulting Group has estimated that a complete ban on U.S. semiconductor firms from selling chips to China would cost U.S. firms 18 percent of their market share, 37 percent of their revenues, and about 15,000 to 40,000 jobs (Varas et al., 2020).

(2) A “hard decoupling” would raise science and technology R&D costs. After the Chinese market and investment from China are stripped away, it would be difficult to support the financial needs of U.S. universities and research institutes solely through subsidies from the U.S. federal government. This could ultimately lead to increased R&D costs and slow down the progress of technology marketization.

(3) [The prospect of] a “hard decoupling” has strengthened China’s determination to achieve industrial autonomy. In October 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CCP proposed “adhering to the core position of innovation in China’s progress of modernization.” At the end of the same year, the Central Economic Work Conference for the first time put forward the concept of “autonomous and controllable” production chains and supply chains as one of the eight key tasks. These policies show that China has not changed its strategic direction because of the United States’ “decoupling” policy, which demonstrates that the strategic goal of the United States has not been achieved.

(iii) Limited Effectiveness of U.S. Industrial Policy Support

(1) The industrial policies implemented by the United States have not been effective in restricting enterprises’ investment behavior in the pursuit of their shareholders’ interests. On the one hand, enterprises may take advantage of government subsidies to obtain short-term gains through stock buybacks rather than productive investments. SIAC members spent a total of $633 billion on stock buybacks between 2011 and 2020 (Lazonick and Hopkins, 2021), more than twelve times the total amount of subsidies promised to the U.S. semiconductor industry in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. On the other hand, multinational enterprises are not willing to abandon the Chinese market entirely. Once the subsidy fund is depleted, these enterprises will still have the possibility of turning to the Chinese market.

(2) Financial support will constrain industrial policy delivery. On the one hand, it would be difficult for the subsidies provided by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to fully support the establishment of a completely self-sufficient local supply chain in the United States, and the amount of talent, energy, materials, and other supporting factors required during the industrial transfer back to the U.S. has also been underestimated. On the other hand, establishing additional plants and production lines involves high fixed costs and does not yield returns in the short term, but does require continuous and massive investment. In the semiconductor industry, for example, Intel plans to build a giant megafab in Ohio that is not expected to start producing chips until 2025 (Robinson, 2022). If the government subsidies fail to promptly materialize as promised, the investment plan will be at risk of being called off.

(3) The “supply chain security problem” is difficult to address. Take the semiconductor industry for example. The existing U.S. science and technology subsidy policy that “puts a heavy emphasis on research and development” and “pays little attention to production”, has led to the premature elimination of a large amount of older chip production capacity. This caused a serious gap between semiconductor supply and demand, and ultimately there was no choice but to ease the “chip shortage” problem through imports. Therefore, the impact of the new industrial policy on U.S. domestic manufacturing capacity and supply chain resilience remains to be seen.

(iv)  The Interests of Allied Groups Do Not Coincide

(1) The exclusive “technology alliances” promoted by the United States will harm the economic interests of its allies. For example, the introduction of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 has undermined Samsung’s and TSMC’s production expansion plans in mainland China. In fact, the multinational enterprises of U.S. allies also have competitive relationships with U.S. enterprises as substitutes, and they have not been compensated accordingly. Business interest losses have dampened the enthusiasm of the allies to coordinate with the United States.

(2) The United States’ “alliance credibility” has been overstretched. On the one hand, the U.S. federal government’s limited fiscal revenue cannot support the cost of maintaining its hegemonic position, therefore its commitments to allies may look like some kind of “lip service that belies reality,” therefore making it difficult to attract France, Germany, and other peripheral allies over the long term. On the other hand, the unstable political situation makes allies skeptical of the consistency of its policies. Allies will usually leave some leeway in their cooperation with the United States in order to avoid political and economic losses and not lose China’s market and opportunities completely (Ma, 2021).

(3) The “America First” policy has led to dissatisfaction among allies. In September 2021, for example, under the slogan of responding to the global chip crisis, the U.S. Department of Commerce forced Samsung and other allied enterprises to disclose confidential data,⁹ and said it would use its policy toolbox against uncooperative enterprises. Such a policy approach, which prioritizes U.S. national interests, has threatened the stability of the technology alliance.

IV. China’s Countermeasures Against U.S. Technology Competition

The more we are subjected to blockades and suppression, the less we can afford to wall ourselves off or self-isolate. Instead, we should pursue a strategy aimed at international science and technology cooperation featuring greater openness, inclusion, and shared benefits. This is also the basic strategy of China’s response to U.S. technology competition.

(i) Adhere to the Principle of Mutual Respect and Avoid A “Full Decoupling”

As it would be difficult, in a short period of time, to change the positions of China and the United States in the global value chain and manufacturing system, achieving cooperation, coexistence, and win-win outcomes would be far better than a full decoupling. On the one hand, China should avoid a comprehensive “hard decoupling” and seek opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation. On the other hand, it should also be alert to the United States’ targeted strikes in the field of science and technology innovation. It cannot be blindly optimistic and give concessions in exchange for cooperation, which will force China into a weak position in a “game of chicken” (Zhang Jie, 2020). In the manufacturing field, the United States’ infrastructure construction plans have offered opportunities for China-U.S. cooperation in transportation, energy, and other areas, and consumer demand from China can also alleviate the impact on the U.S. manufacturing industry. At the bilateral cooperation level, opportunities should be sought to resume strategic and economic dialogues and jointly maintain the stability of the international order and interaction. In negotiations, we should firmly adhere to the policy position of developing countries, clarify the necessity and rationality of industrial policies for both China and the United States, define the compliance standards of industrial policies through consultation, and jointly improve subsidization methods. It should be noted that the prerequisite for smooth negotiations is that both sides uphold the principle of mutual respect, and to make this condition possible, the U.S. side must have a clear understanding of the bottom lines and principles with regard to China’s national interests and sovereignty. Therefore, it is necessary to pay high political costs to send signals of strategic determination to the United States, so that China-U.S. relations can return to a “manageable and orderly state.” In terms of regional cooperation, China should respond to the United States’ return to the CPTPP or its accession to regional cooperation agreements such as the RCEP with an open mind, try to rebuild a relationship of trust between the two countries, show China’s positive attitude toward multilateralism and global governance, and respond to international public opinion and skepticism with a firm position.

(ii) Create Platforms for Technology Cooperation and Clear the “Roadblocks” of Technological Breakthroughs

Making breakthroughs in “chokepoint technology” is still the basis for developing reciprocal and cooperative relations with other countries. On the one hand, with the successful experience of BeiDou-1 system research as a reference, we should emphasize the importance of major science and technology projects under the new nationwide resource mobilization mechanism, in terms of its guiding and organizing capabilities for downstream technological actors, such as enterprises, scientific research institutes, and industry associations (Song Lifeng et al., 2022). On the other hand, we should take the initiative to further open up and improve the cooperation ecosystem for science and technology. First of all, efforts should be made to build domestic-international technology exchange platforms. We should take the initiative in constructing and building high-standard technological exchange platforms by, for example, leveraging major science and technology projects, international import expositions, free trade zones, free trade ports, and other strategies and platforms, participating in international conferences, establishing bilateral and multilateral research associations and research foundations, and actively promoting science and technology project cooperation in key technological fields. Secondly, we should make full use of civic and industrial organizations, guide social organizations to play an active role in transnational technology cooperation, promote the exchange of talents, strengthen the cultivation of talents, hold more innovation seminars and science and technology competitions, provide demonstration platforms for excellent technical talents, and optimize the resource distribution of universities and scientific research institutions. Thirdly, enterprises should be encouraged to adopt a strategy of “competition and cooperation,” seek appropriate overseas partners, establish a learning mechanism of win-win cooperation, and improve their knowledge absorption capacity and level of learning. Finally, opportunities should be sought for cooperation with non-competitive organizations outside China, such as upstream and downstream enterprises, cross-industry enterprises, higher education institutions, and research institutes, etc., since when it comes to enhancing technology innovation capability, non-competitors outside China also have their own strengths to offer (Frame et al., 1979).

(iii) Firmly Uphold Multilateralism and Promote Consensus-Building on National Interests

Given the credibility overdraft of U.S. hegemony and the persisting economic problems caused by the Russia-Ukraine War, U.S. allies have to deal with the accumulating political and economic pressures in their countries, and other economies are also seeking opportunities for strategic cooperation. Against this backdrop, China should seize the chance and seek to reach a consensus that maximizes its interests. First, China should flexibly handle its own position in bilateral and multilateral negotiations with the “allies” that the United States has won over, leverage its trade strengths to seek strategic support, and send “cooperation signals” at a proper time. For example, China and Europe have the potential for cooperation on issues such as the digital economy, the green economy, cybersecurity, safeguarding multilateralism, and third-party markets, and for Japan and South Korea, the ASEAN-China-Japan-Korea (10+3) Industrial Chain Supply Chain Cooperation initiative has strategic appeal. Second, we should actively unite with developing countries to explore the applicability and compliance of economic and technological sanctions under the WTO framework, cooperate on anti-intervention, and establish an anti-intervention alliance, thereby increasing the overall bargaining power of developing countries in multilateral economic negotiations. Third, we should continue to deepen exchanges and cooperation with developing countries in the field of public health, adhere to the argument that COVID-19 vaccines are international public goods, and strengthen international collaboration through the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) program and other channels.

(iv) Jointly Maintain the International Order and Actively Participate in Global Technology Governance

It is in the common interest of China and the United States to maintain the stability of the international order. It is necessary for China to join hands with other economies, the United States included, to improve the benefit-sharing and compensation mechanisms of the international order, so as to avoid competition for limited resources, shirking of responsibilities, and unfair market competition. Market access and subsidy mechanisms should be carried out under the framework of the multilateral trading system to ensure the transparency and fairness of procedures and mechanisms. Specifically, under multilateral frameworks, China can participate in the discussion of global governance issues through high-level dialogue mechanisms such as the G20, the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, and the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. It can strengthen collaboration with emerging economies, demonstrate its concern for the least developed countries, and unite stakeholder countries, so as to avoid being besieged by the United States’ “circle of friends.” In terms of rule-making, on the one hand, China should understand the intentions and national conditions of participating members, emphasize the application of informal institutional arrangements, take inclusive growth as its basic goal, seek mutual benefits and win-win outcomes, and promote the building of a “community of a shared future for mankind” and a “community of human health.” It should properly handle conflicts between international and extraterritorial jurisdiction, instead of unilaterally “liberalizing,” “legalizing,” and “instrumentalizing” trade and forcing members to accept a “package of commitments,” which may cause a serious impact on the more vulnerable emerging industries of developing countries. On the other hand, it should urge developed countries to undertake technology transfer obligations, materialize the principles of transparency and non-discrimination, and mend the WTO’s loopholes in the dispute settlement mechanism and the compliance of trade remedies, so as to prevent developed countries from protecting their domestic industries through repeated trade remedy investigations and temporary tariffs.