A technological Cold War won't do any good

World
Europe

03:25

China and the U.S. are planning more negotiations. The latest round of trade talks in Washington DC earlier this month included discussions on intellectual property rights protection, non-tariff measures, and trade balance. With technology competition likely on top of the agenda, how to prevent the Cold War in technology and new economy and how can both sides find a win-win solution?

Tian Wei talked to Fred Teng, the president of the America China Public Affairs Institute, and Andrew Browne, the Editorial Director of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. They shared their opinions.

"I think this technology Cold War is going to be with us for quite some time, I don't think there is a short term solution to this," Mr. Browne said.

"The U.S. is now coming up with a very long list of technologies among which they want to keep China out of them, including the foundation of technologies, artificial intelligence, neural networks and machine learning. The applications of those foundations in areas like autonomous cars, robotics, advanced manufacturing, and so on," he continued.

If this program was implemented, it could have a very serious impact on the entire global industries. "I was in Silicon Valley recently. In the auto sector, generally, people are working on things like navigation systems, working on radar, this type of advanced technology. They are very worried the global auto industry could split into two," he added.

It is very dangerous to see the list because, in terms of the advantages of both economies, the U.S. certainly has a lot of advantages in technological development and China, as big a market as it is, is providing enormous resources to the data which is very crucial for any new technology and economy to thrive. In this case, if splitting the two became a reality, no one knew how to do.

"If we are talking about a technology Cold War, shots are already been fired, in terms of how to stop that, it will take very rational leaders to stop on both sides. I do not think there is a scenario at this point," Mr. Teng said. What he means is that the longer the technology Cold War is prolonged, it will be bad, not only for the U.S. and China, but for the whole world.

The U.S. is looking in China now because there is a competition coming up and they are seeing China is making all these accomplishments, but it's not just China, many countries are developing their own technology.

"China landed on the far side of the moon this year and Israel just did. You will have other countries also competing in space, then the U.S. has to look at how it has to deal with all of this. I think competition is good, and we will really help each other to move ahead and to grow and to do even further for the whole world," Mr. Teng added.

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