I refer to the CNA’s Commentary, “From Deepseek to Huawei, US tech
restrictions on China are backfiring” (Jan 31).
Would it be practical, useful and effective for the United States to
continually pursue an aggressive containment strategy to hobble
China’s tech push? Undoubtedly, the answer is obviously not.
There are two advantageous factors which are in favour of the development of China’s AI and high-tech industry. They are:
Macro-environment
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, China has always advocated a path of peace and economic development. It will never engage in expansionist activities externally and adopting a foreign
policy of friendship, mutual understanding, exchange, openness and cooperation with all countries in the world. Therefore, over the past seventy years, China’s domestic politics and society have been stable,
and people’s education and living standards have been swiftly uplifted, which will definitely contribute to China’s all-round economic development.
Over the past three decades, the Chinese government has been fully committed to developing a comprehensive industrial chain and has achieved success, and it is seamlessly integrated with its supply
chain, which will undoubtedly help develop its domestic high-tech.
In contrast, the United States has deployed troops abroad nearly twenty times since World War II. For examples:
1950-1953 Korean War
1958 Invasion of Lebanon
1961-1975 Vietnam War
1999 Kosovo War
2001-2014 Afghan war
This has inadvertently and greatly depleted its national strength and weakened its national treasury.
For many years, the government has been unable to make ends meet, leading to a heavy national debt (by July 2024, exceeding US$35 trillions).
This has also indirectly caused or affected the United States’ neglect of developing its production industry over the years, with the exception of the military-industrial complex industry.
It is precisely because of the decline of the production industry in the United States that it has indirectly slowed down the pace of R&D and development of its high-tech industries.
Both the past and present governments of the United States have a crab mentality or crab theory. This has also indirectly led to the massive loss of some well-known scientific research and technical talents overseas. The most obvious is being absorbed by China. Anyway, this is the fatal injury or taboos of technological warfare.
Micro-environment
Let’s narrow down to the success stories of Huawei and Deepseek, both companies have equipped and shared the common faith and characteristics as follows:
1)They have never taken any high-tech companies of USA for granted or taking them lightly. In fact, they respect them as their robust competitors and emulate them by example.
2)Both Huawei and Deepseek have self-transcendence visions. They value, carefully select and highly employ high-tech talents (few thousand or hundreds scientists, engineers, mathematicians, AI expert and technological people).
For examples, the founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei have regularly motivated his staff of all levels to seek innovation and getting their staff’s feedbacks regarding any new technology research and breakthrough, sales and operational issues.
The founder and CEO of Deepseek, Liang Wenfeng also applies the similar operation tactics/strategies as Huawei.
3)They aim to cut the cost of using their AI product, model or operating system as lowest as possible. This will maximise their customer base and conquer the global market share.
4)They get the strong backyard support from the Chinese government and the people.
All in all, if the U.S. government blindly adopts various despicable means to contain and attack the development of China’s high-tech and AI industries, it will never be effective, successful or sustainable. On the contrary, only adopting mutual respect, exchange of experience, and having joint research and development as well as cooperation between the two parties are the key to success. It is also the strategy of win-win and for achieving the greater good.
Teo Kueh Liang (Mr)
