January 13, 2023
Decoupling Wastes U.S. Leverage on China
In October, the Biden administration announced sweeping export controls on semiconductors to China. Denying access to chips is necessary, the administration said, to keep them out of Chinese weapons and protect U.S. national security. The new policy is a mistake, however, and will harm U.S. security rather than defend it. In cutting off China’s access to advanced chips today, the United States is giving up its long-term leverage over Chinese artificial-intelligence development and accelerating China’s drive toward chip independence. Recent U.S. export controls are the latest step in “decoupling” U.S.-China technology ties, yet decoupling is not enough to secure U.S. interests in a long-term competition. A better approach would be to keep China dependent on U.S. technology, giving the United States the ability to deny China access to key technologies when necessary.
The ability to deny China access to advanced chips is a powerful advantage whose value is growing exponentially.
Recent U.S. export controls are a major escalation in the U.S.-China tech competition. In September, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced a change from the U.S. goal of being “only a couple of generations ahead” of China in key technologies to maintaining “as large of a lead as possible.” The Biden administration’s aggressive new semiconductor export controls put this principle into practice, aiming to stop Chinese chip development in its tracks. Yet key elements of the policy are likely to backfire.
Read the full article from Foreign Policy.
More from CNAS
-
Ukraine Symposium – The Continuing Autonomous Arms Race
Commentary
This war-powered technology race does not appear to be losing steam, and what happens on the battlefields of Ukraine can potentially define how belligerents use military auton...
By Samuel Bendett
-
Beyond DeepSeek: How China’s AI Ecosystem Fuels Breakthroughs
Commentary
While the United States should not mimic China’s state-backed funding model, it also can’t leave AI’s future to the market alone....
By Ruby Scanlon
-
Averting AI Armageddon
Reports
In recent years, the previous bipolar nuclear order led by the United States and Russia has given way to a more volatile tripolar one, as China has quantitatively and qualitat...
By Jacob Stokes, Colin H. Kahl, Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Nicholas Lokker
-
France Pursues an AI “Third Way”
Commentary
This AI third way is not AI sovereignty in a traditional sense, which at a high level is a nation’s policy of placing the development, deployment, and control of AI models, in...
By Pablo Chavez
