The Return of Geopolitics: Global Value Chains, Emerging Technologies and US-China Relations

The Moynihan Institute, and the East Asia Program are proud to present Mark Dallas and Dimitar Gueorguiev. 

Previously, the global order was largely rules-based and functionally integrated through global value chains. But, geopolitics has returned due to the U.S.-China trade and technology conflicts, the rise of supply chain vulnerabilities highlighted by COVID-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, the geopolitical goals of policymakers and the foreign economic policies they pursue are conditioned by the technologies, industrial organization and geographies of global industries, even if policymakers remain unaware of this underlying industrial organization.  Put simply, economic interdependence varies based on industry structures bequeathed from the prior era of globalization. 

This talk examines information-communication technology (ICTs) industries that reside at the heart of U.S.-China technology conflicts (e.g. semiconductors, mobile telecom, high performance computation). It argues that ICTs are organized into ‘massive modular ecosystems’ that exhibit several key paradoxes.

These paradoxes raise fundamental challenges for governments in securing critical supply chains, and they problematize policies like ‘decoupling,’ ‘self-reliance’ and ‘re-shoring’ which both China and U.S. (among other nations) are currently pursuing. 

They also raise questions about the use of US economic sanctions and export controls against China, which rely upon overly simplified ‘networked’ typologies that can be governed at key ‘chokepoints,’ through ‘lists’ of export restrictions.