When Antony Blinken visited Beijing last month, it was the first such mission to China by a sitting U.S. secretary of state since 2018. Contrast that with the Obama administration, when then-Secretary Hillary Clinton went to China seven times in just under four years.
It’s fair to say that U.S.-China relations aren’t what they used to be. There is competition and tension in several arenas, particularly when it comes to technology. A few years ago, Washington began to move to keep companies such as Huawei out of U.S. infrastructure for fear of their ability to spy. Today, as evidenced by the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act, U.S. policy isn’t just about preventing spying but containing China’s very ability to access high-end computing power.
Where is U.S.-China tech competition headed? Are Washington’s restrictions on Beijing working? How is China’s tech sector reacting? Dan Wang, a tech analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, lived in China from 2017 until last year, closely observing the country’s tech sector. Wang is famous in part for his perceptive annual letters reflecting on developments in the world’s second-biggest economy. FP’s Ravi Agrawal spoke with Wang on FP Live.
Technologist Dan Wang explains whether U.S. regulatory measures are effective in actually curbing China’s ability to produce high-end semiconductor chips and proliferate its technology around the world.
Wang explains why he is pessimistic about China’s long-term economic rise and doesn’t believe China’s technological rise is inevitable.
Dan Wang
Visiting scholar, Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center
Dan Wang is a technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics and visiting scholar at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.
Host
Ravi Agrawal
Editor in chief, Foreign Policy
Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy, the host of FP Live, and a regular world affairs analyst on TV and radio. Before joining FP in 2018, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade in full-time roles spanning three continents, including as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. He is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy.
