A couple of years ago, I read “Destined for War,” which explored whether conflict between China and America is indeed inevitable — like once-invincible Sparta and ascendant Athens in ancient Greece. In evaluating the modern dynamic, the book examines not only the clashes of Hellenic city-states but a variety of other moments in human history — some where war was averted, others where it was not.
One instance that backfired badly was France’s response to a rising Prussia, when Napoleon III’s efforts to stop Otto von Bismarck from unifying German states gave him the very rallying cry he needed. Author Graham Allison writes, “France made a strategic error common to ruling powers: taking action it believes will prevent a rising power from surpassing its position but in fact hastening the very reversal of fortune it most fears.”
If Washington doesn’t get its policy right on AI, the same thing could happen now.
Whether we like it or not, China has been catching up to the U.S. in critical industries at an alarming rate, while simultaneously undercutting American global leadership in technological innovation. In the last 10 years, China has either passed us — or put itself on a trajectory to pass us — in shipbuilding, aerospace, telecommunications networks, quantum computing, and other sectors.
Given how critical AI will be as a force multiplier in every industry moving forward, we cannot allow China to win that race.
Much of China’s “progress” has been possible simply by stealing or copying American technology. Many of these instances involve Huawei and other state-linked firms using espionage tactics like source-code copying, trade-secret theft, coerced tech transfer, and cyber intrusions. China has even deployed sex spies to exploit lonely Silicon Valley engineers.
Frankly, all of this amounts to a declaration of open warfare. But stealing will only allow China to catch up — not pull ahead, right?
That long-standing Washington assumption could be wrong.
Short-sighted policy out of Washington has restricted American technology for foreign export, harming our industries and actually undermining national security. The goal should not be to prevent China from having any of our tech; it should be to make China dependent on it.
President Joe Biden attempted to control semiconductor exports with the aim of impairing Chinese capabilities. Instead, the move gave Beijing the impetus it needed to accelerate its semiconductor independence, establishing a $47 billion semiconductor fund. That policy did “more to achieve extreme regulatory overreach than protect U.S. interests,” said Oracle Vice President Ken Glueck.
By shutting down access to Western suppliers, Biden’s policies catalyzed Chinese firms to vertically integrate supply chains for all AI and computing infrastructure. These export controls have been proven to threaten national security. By restricting U.S. chips from global markets, we lost influence over those markets. But when countries — even our rivals — build their AI infrastructure around American chips, we gain strategic leverage and technological dependencies that shape global standards and supply chains.
Only days into his second term, the Trump administration rescinded this rule, adopting a more open approach to negotiating revenue-sharing agreements with chipmakers. The consummate dealmaker, President Donald Trump, struck deals with domestic manufacturers, allowing them to sell AI chips to China — in exchange, Uncle Sam would get 15 percent of their China-sales revenue.
The administration and Congress now have an opportunity to correct past missteps while putting us on the path to strategic, controlled expansion of American technology to global markets, including China. We need clear frameworks for export-approval systems that discern between materials whose sensitivity must be protected and those acceptable for widespread use.
The situation is of such grave importance that even some Democrats are on the right side of the issue. This summer, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) supported the Trump administration’s decision to allow domestic manufacturers to sell chips to China, saying, “We have to balance not giving them the most advanced stuff while making sure that they’re dependent on U.S. technology.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, China has been “bitten” by our export restriction policies. That headline is misleading: Huawei is growing stronger, SMIC is reallocating fab capacity to AI chips, and domestic demand is surging. Our overly restrictive policies have created a guaranteed, captive market for Huawei which is slowly expanding its global capabilities and becoming a competitor to U.S. companies. Very much like the strategy OPEC sometimes takes with the world’s oil supply, it’s better to get the rest of the world hooked on our product rather than incentivize them to find work-arounds.
The U.S. and China are certainly not destined for war. But if war does break out between the two powers, it won’t be ancient Greek phalanxes like in “300” — it will be nuclear conflict. The best way to prevent such a war is for the United States to maintain unchallengeable global military, economic, and technological dominance. In the AI race, we must not take actions we believe will prevent a rising China from surpassing our position that in fact hasten the very reversal of fortune we most fear.