Principal speaker
Dr Scott A.W. Brown
GAI Seminar: Great Power Tech Competition: Critical technologies, supply chains, and weaponised interdependence in US-China relations
Presented by Dr Scott A.W. Brown, University of Dundee
ABSTRACT
Technological innovation is intimately bound up with great power competition. A standout feature of the contemporary era of US-China great power rivalry is the centrality of critical and high-end technologies upon which advanced economies and military are heavily dependent. The degree of technological exchange between the US and China simultaneously enhances their technological power and exposes new vulnerabilities via the weaponisation of asymmetric interdependencies. Despite intensified strategic competition leading to calls in the US for "decoupling' from China, the two continue to cooperate in areas where their interests overlap.
I posit that the dynamics of US-China technological interdependence can be captured through the prism of hegemonic ordering, with a particular focus on the complex nature of regional and global hierarchal structures wherein both powers seek to exert influence over other actors to build coalitional hegemonies. The case of contestation over semiconductor supply chains is studied as it exemplifies both how US technological statecraft aims to constrain China's technological rise and influence other states to adopt complementary strategies.
In this paper, I explore how policies covering semiconductor production, export controls, and technological self-sufficiency have influenced the trajectory of US-China hegemonic contestation within East Asia. Through examining US and Chinese strategies and the positions adopted by other regional players with a significant stake in the semiconductor issue - Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan - I seek to ascertain a) the extent to which the US has been able to maintain its regional hegemonic position, b) what this means for China's efforts to reshape the regional hierarchy in line with its own interests, and c) the significance of technological interdependence - and the threat of its weaponisation - for the competitive-cooperative dynamic in US-China relations.
SPEAKER
Scott Brown is a lecturer in Politics & International Relations at the University of Dundee, where he teaches mostly IR theory. During July and August 2024, he is a Visiting Fellow at ANU's Australian Centre on China in the World. His research concentrates on the "strategic triangle' of EU/rope-US-China relations, most recently with particular interest in the role of technology therein. He is the author of Power, Perception and Foreign Policymaking: US and EU Responses to the Rise of China (Routledge, 2018). Scott obtained his PhD from the University of Glasgow and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
This is an invitation-only event