THIRTEEN years ago, China’s foremost social science think tank, the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), compared the country’s competitive standing with other nations in the world.
CASS estimated that China could be among the top five most competitive countries in the G20 only by 2020. It was also noted that it would be another 40 years before China could emerge as the second-most powerful nation next to the US.
The same report warned that China’s core competitiveness could not match its ranking when it comes to high-level talents or in the fields of culture, education, health, science and technology.
It pointed out that China’s index of high-level talents stands at 8.3% of the US and 10% of Japan. In the field of higher education, China’s index was only 10% of the European Union and one-third that of the US.
Though China ranked fourth in higher education competitiveness in 2008, most first-class universities are still in the EU and the US.
The report also noted that the country’s science and technology competitiveness index is less than one-third that of the US.
Fast forward to today and China’s ranking of scientific and technological achievement has changed quite dramatically.
According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), China has built the foundations to position itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower by establishing ”a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains”.
China’s global lead presently extends to 37 of the 44 technologies that ASPI tracks, and covers a range of crucial technology fields spanning defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas.
ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker showed that for some technologies, all of the world’s top 10 leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country, most often the US.
While the gap between China and developed countries in the West in the sciences has narrowed, within the country’s think tanks, there is recognition that China is still not a highly developed country in other spheres.
What stands in the way of China’s development today stems mainly from outside forces, notably the US and its allies.
Beginning with Donald Trump’s presidency and now intensifying with Joe Biden’s administration, US strategies involving geopolitical, economic and military measures have evolved to inflict damage on China and the Communist Party of China, including through the instigation of regime change.
Despite encircling China with the greatest number of military bases, the US is aware that China is capable of inflicting more than grievous damage on the US.
Decoupling
On June 27, Hungary Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said at the World Economic Forum annual conference in Tianjin, China: “Both decoupling and derisking would be a suicide committed by the European economy. How can you decouple without killing the European economy?”
On April 30, Mercedes CEO Ola Kallenius told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that decoupling from China, the world’s second largest economy, is “unthinkable for almost all of German industry”.
“The major players in the global economy, Europe, the US and China, are so closely intertwined that decoupling from China makes no sense.”
And on June 21, during a visit to China, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Premier Li Qiang that the German side welcomes China’s development and prosperity, stating that Germany rejects all forms of decoupling, and that “derisking” is not “de-Sinicisation”. https://english.news.cn/20230622/f53adca4691b403e95d964fb969880e1/c.html
Currently, the preferred US modus operandi to squeeze China is through a combination of economic and geopolitical pressure and the use of Western media in its daily anti-China reporting.
The fiercest battles fought on these fronts are in the Indo-Pacific region and Europe where the US is actively engaged in pressurising countries to decouple from China.
Sometimes couched in politically polite terms, such as “derisking” or “containing”, this unprecedented economic offensive in the US has involved export and import controls, divestment orders, licensing denials, visa bans, financial and related sanctions, tariffs, anti-China technology rules, federal and state actions and law enforcement measures.
The objective is to cripple China’s economy so that the Chinese government will learn to live as a suppliant state beholden to US hegemony in the same way as other US allies.
How this battle over decoupling turns out in the Indo-Pacific and European regions may well determine the course of great power rivalry as well as progress towards a new international order.
Resisting hegemony and unipolar world
Besides countering or turning the other cheek to the US and ally provocation, China has focused on bringing its scientific and technological resources to tackle global development issues, not only those of great power rivalry.
Some of the world’s leading mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists were recently invited to Beijing for the inaugural International Congress of Basic Science event.
Presently ongoing, the event brings together experts to discuss, collaborate and explore cutting-edge issues across mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computing and the information sciences. (https://www.icbs.cn/en/web/index/).
In addition to speaking on their specialised area of expertise, some of the top scientists have spoken out in support of the importance of international collaboration and exchange.
In contrast to those calling for the isolation of China through decoupling, these leaders of science recognise that science knows no borders and reject decoupling in the world of knowledge and science and technology fields.
Many scientists present at the meeting are aware of the costs of scientific decoupling targetted at China.
The world, including the West, needs China’s pool of scientists and technologists to work on health, environment, food security, climate change and other social and economic challenges that are most pressing in developing nations but which also have knock-on and direct effects on the developed world.
The derisking, decoupling and de-Sinicisation strategy that the US and some Asian and European countries pursue will not only turn back the clock on the interests of the West but also impede the march of progress towards a multipolar and more sustainable world.
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
