This book skillfully weaves together four stories: Chinese views of technology during the Communist era; the role of the military in Chinese political and economic life; the evolution of open and flexible conceptions of public management in China; and the technological dimensions of the rise of Chinese power.

This book analyzes China’s foreign technology acquisition activity and how this has helped its rapid rise to superpower status. Since 1949, China has operated a vast and unique system of foreign technology spotting and transfer aimed at accelerating civilian and military development, reducing the cost of basic research, and shoring up its power domestically and abroad—without running the political risks borne by liberal societies as a basis for their creative developments. While discounted in some circles as derivative and consigned to perpetual catch-up mode, China’s "hybrid" system of legal, illegal, and extralegal import of foreign technology, combined with its indigenous efforts, is, the authors believe, enormously effective and must be taken seriously. Accordingly, in this volume, 17 international specialists combine their scholarship to portray the system’s structure and functioning in heretofore unseen detail, using primary Chinese sources to demonstrate the perniciousness of the problem in a manner not likely to be controverted. The book concludes with a series of recommendations culled from the authors’ interactions with experts worldwide. This book will be of much interest to students of Chinese politics, US foreign policy, intelligence studies, science and technology studies, and International Relations in general.

Based on first-hand information obtained from Chinese and Foreign enterprises and institutions in the Chinese ICT industry, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Chinese ICT industrial sector. It especially analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, and threats facing both the Chinese enterprise and western multinationals.

The 1980s saw spirited debate in China, as officials and the public pressed for economic and political liberalization. But after Tiananmen, the Communist Party erased the reform debate from memory. Julian Gewirtz shows how the leadership expunged alternative visions of China's future and set the stage for the policing of history under Xi Jinping.

Techno-Geopolitics explores contemporary U.S.–China relations and the future of global cyber-security through the prisms of geopolitics and financial-technological competition. It puts forward a new conceptual framework for an emerging field of digital statecraft and discusses a range of key issues including the controversies around 5G technology, policy regulations over TikTok and WeChat, the emergence of non-traditional espionage, and potential trends in post-pandemic foreign policy. Analysing the ramifications of the ongoing U.S.–China trade standoff, this book maps the terrain of technological war and the race for global technological leadership and economic supremacy. It shows how China’s technological advancements not only have been the key to its national economic development but also have been the core focus of U.S. intelligence. Further, it draws on U.S.–China counterintelligence cases sourced from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to explore emerging patterns and techniques of China’s espionage practice. A cutting-edge study on the future of statecraft, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of international relations, security and intelligence studies, information technology and artificial intelligence and political science, especially U.S. foreign policy and China studies. It will also be of great interest to policymakers, career bureaucrats, security and intelligence practitioners, technology regulators, and professionals working with think tanks and embassies.

China: The Stealth Empire asks why it is that China despite its size and once advanced culture and technology did not become a world power centuries ago? Burman traces the answer through Chinese innate sense of superiority which made foreign conquest and trade an irrelevance. This is about to change with the evolution of what is termed the Stealth Empire characterised by world dominance in the production of consumer goods, a growing share of world manufacturing and a strong sense of nationalism. The Chinese believe that they need to do nothing as they evolve by the middle of the century into the dominant world power. Burman's book opens a window onto this history and growing sense of national destiny. It will be essential reading for anyone wanting to understand what is going on in the Stealth Empire.

Various efforts by US lawmakers and the executive during the Trump administration to move toward technological decoupling with China betray a deep-rooted and pathological misunderstanding of how the global technology industry works. They also risk backfiring on five counts. First, it is too little too late. If the United States was serious about policing what it refers to as China’s “innovation mercantilism,” it should have taken steps in this direction almost 15 years ago when China first got serious about increasing “indigenous innovation.” Second, efforts to contain China by cutting off its companies’ access to western technologies and markets are bound to be counterproductive. Chinese firms are sure to gain access sooner or later to these technologies and thereby succeed in their global ambitions anyway. Third, a policy of uncompromising confrontation only strengthens hawkish elements in China and further undercuts China’s case to embrace deeper market opening and structural reforms. Fourth, technological decoupling undermines the US’s relative position and its technology companies’ ability to maintain pre-eminence across a range of advanced technologies. Fifth and finally, US efforts to contain China for the sole purpose of retaining unchallenged hegemony essentially cedes the moral high ground to the Chinese leadership and undermines the US’s position globally as the so-called “city upon a hill.” Instead, the new Biden administration should use the US’s still formidable market power and geopolitical influence to both gently coerce and actively incentivize China into shouldering more responsibilities with its newfound economic power. Indeed, the carnage that the Trump administration has wreaked on the US-China relationship and the many trade and investment restrictions imposed on Chinese firms and imports provide a great starting point for the Biden administration to negotiate with China. They should focus on a more balanced and reciprocal relationship of mutual market openness and competitive opportunities for each nation’s firms and their respective domestic markets.