‘Wake-up call’: China takes stunning lead in race for tech domination
By Matthew Knott
March 2, 2023 — 4.00pmKey points
- China is the global leader in 37 of the 44 technologies tracked by the think tank, while the US leads in the other seven.
- Australia ranks among the top five countries for nine technologies.
- The report also finds China is home to the world’s top-10 research institutions for some technologies and often produces five times as much high-impact research as its closest competitor
By Matthew Knott
March 2, 2023 — 4.00pm
China is pulling ahead in the race for global technological dominance far quicker than previously thought, positioning the authoritarian state to become the world’s undisputed science and technology superpower and gain a stranglehold over crucial supply chains.
A first-of-its-kind report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute finds China has established a sometimes “stunning” lead over the United States in high-impact research across domains including defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
China is the global leader in 37 of the 44 technologies tracked by the think tank, including advanced explosives, biological manufacturing, drone technology and critical minerals processing.
It is home to the world’s top-10 research institutions for some technologies and often produces five times as much high-impact research as its closest competitor.
The report’s authors argue their findings should be a “wake-up call” for democratic nations to dramatically increase their investment in research and development if they want to have any hope of catching up to China.
They say the most pressing short-term risk is that China develops a monopoly over critical technologies that it can then use to punish foreign governments and businesses.
The report finds there is a “high risk” of China developing a monopoly over eight crucial technologies including electric batteries, synthetic biology and advanced radiofrequency communications, including 5G and 6G networks.
“In the long term, China’s leading research position means it has set itself up to excel not just in current technological development in almost all sectors, but in future technologies that don’t yet exist,” write authors Jamie Gaida, Jennifer Wong-Leung, Stephan Robin and Danielle Cave.
“Unchecked, this could shift not just technological development and control but global power and influence to an authoritarian state where the development, testing and application of emerging, critical and military technologies isn’t open and transparent and where it can’t be scrutinised by independent civil society and media.”
The report challenges the claim, often made by US politicians, that China’s technological advances are driven mostly by the theft of American intellectual property.
For example, China generated 49 per cent of high-impact research papers into advanced aircraft engines – including hypersonics – over the past five years and is home to seven of the world’s top-10 research institutions in this topic.
The authors created their rankings by examining 2.2 million research papers relevant to the key critical technology fields and isolating the top 10 per cent of highly cited papers over the past five years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of investment in science and technology, making it a core development pillar of the Chinese Communist Party.
The US leads in seven of the 44 tracked technologies including quantum computing, vaccines and space launch systems and is second in most other categories.
US President Joe Biden last year signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act, designed to help America compete with China by pouring $US280 billion ($415 billion) into research and development.
Australia ranks among the top five countries for nine technologies, performing strongly in cybersecurity, critical minerals extraction and processing, electric batteries, hydrogen and ammonia power, blockchains and 3D printing.
The report finds that 22 per cent of China’s high-impact authors completed their postgraduate training in a “Five Eyes” member country (the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
The authors call for democratic countries to seriously consider creating sovereign wealth funds of 0.5-0.7 per cent of gross national income to fund critical technology research. A significant portion of this funding should be reserved for “moonshot” projects that are high-risk and high-reward.
Democratic governments should also explore special technology visas and R&D grants between allies as well as restructuring the tax system to encourage growth in venture capital.
“We should expect the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to continue to follow through on its strategic vision for science and technology,” the authors write.
“Developing a global lead in high-impact research will help support future technological and scientific advances and breakthroughs that will underpin everything from developments in green energy and biotechnology to new military and intelligence capabilities.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.sm...race-for-tech-domination-20230301-p5conv.html
