Edward Tse

Opinion | Apple and Tesla’s success in China shows Sino-US cooperation can be a win-win

While US policymakers are reeling from a Harvard report on China’s tech superiority, foreign corporations already know that Beijing’s top-down, long-term planning works

US companies like Apple and Tesla can see the benefits of working with China – perhaps a similar approach is needed at a national level

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Edward Tse

Published: 1:30am, 28 Jan 2022

The Belfer Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School released a paper in December titled “The Great Tech Rivalry: China vs the US”, analysing the technological status of the two giant economies.

Harvard professor Graham Allison, lead author of the report, and Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO, also published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on the subject. They contend that China has already surpassed the US in areas like artificial intelligence, 5G, quantum information science, semiconductors, biotechnology and green energy.

The study identified China’s “whole-of-society” approach as the differentiator. But how does this accelerate China’s technological development? The US needs a comprehensive understanding of what has driven China’s innovation abilities in general, so policymakers can develop a more strategic response.

China’s five-year plans lay out the country’s priorities and responses to both domestic and external changes. While US policymakers have long scoffed at China’s top-down planning system, these directives have generally delivered good outcomes, particularly in the past couple of decades.

Today Schmidt insists China has surpassed the US in AI and this is, coincidentally, an area China started focusing on over a decade ago.

The recent US sanctions on a range of technology, such as high-end semiconductor chips, have triggered faster domestic development in China. Many in the world expect China to catch up with the West, Taiwan and Korea in high-end chips in the not-so-distant future.