Elected U.S. President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on December 14, 2020, on the certification of the Electoral College at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images
GUANGZHOU, China – Elected President Joe Biden is unlikely to reverse President Donald Trump’s challenge to China’s technology industry and companies – but Biden is likely to be more purposeful in his approach and working with allies, experts told CNBC.
During his presidency, Trump sought to challenge the Chinese technology industry through sanctions, executive orders, and other actions. Biden is likely to pursue such a policy.
“The bullet has left the room. Trump has completely disrupted the status quo that has existed between the US and China for decades,” Abishur Prakash, a geopolitical specialist at the Center for Innovating the Future (CIF), said in a consultation company in Toronto, told CNBC in an email.
Cooperation with allies
The approach to cutting off China’s technology ventures could continue under a Biden presidency.
“I think the admin will continue to see technology as a major source of competition and continue a number of Trump’s approaches to shutting down the flow of critical technology to China, ” said Adam Segal, director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), said. .
“The difference is that the process will be more collaborative, with both the private sector and allies, and will be more focused on a closer set of technologies,” he told CNBC in an email.
The preference of a Biden team is probably to control fewer technologies, but to place walls around those deemed necessary for national security reasons.
Paul Triolo, head of geotechnology practice at risk consultant Eurasia Group, has agreed that the Biden administration will work with allies on its strategy regarding Chinese technology.
Triolo told CNBC that Biden’s team would “explain what needs to be controlled within the areas of emerging and fundamental technologies.” Some of these areas will include artificial intelligence and so-called quantum computing, the next generation of computers that use quantum physics to solve problems that existing computers take years to solve.
“Here, the preference of a Biden team would probably be to control fewer technologies, but to place high walls around those deemed necessary for national security reasons,” Triolo said in an email. “I would also expect the definition of what technology is critical to controlling national security reasons to be much clearer under a Biden government than during the Trump years.”
Prakash says Biden will likely continue Trump’s quest to exclude Chinese providers of next-generation 5G mobile networks around the world. The Trump administration has pressed allies to remove Huawei from its networks. Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom have done so effectively.
The geopolitical specialist said Biden could also “recalibrate” in areas such as blacklisting Chinese companies or certain export controls, while also wanting to innovate in terms of his approach to other areas, such as the data rules of mergers and acquisitions.
One thing is for sure: the technological battle between the US and China will continue under a Biden presidency.
“The US does not have too many options. It enables China to dominate the world through technology or challenge,” Prakash said.