As their rivalry intensifies, the US and China are vying to control the design, development and production of critical technologies such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. By fostering asymmetric dependencies, both powers are pushing other countries into economic servitude.
In 1853, under orders from President Millard Fillmore, U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry led four warships on a mission to persuade Japan to end its 200-year isolationist policy. Arriving in what is now Tokyo Bay, Perry gave the Tokugawa shogunate an ultimatum: open trade with the United States or face the consequences.
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The arrival of these “black ships” (so called because of the dark smoke emitted by their coal-fired steam engines) was a watershed moment. Faced with this impressive display of technological prowess—exemplifying the industrial might that had already enabled the British Empire to dominate much of the world—the shogunate reluctantly agreed to Perry’s demands, leading to the signing of the Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854. A year later, the shogunate received its first steam-powered warship from the Dutch as a token of recognition.
While technology can pose a threat, it also powers critical infrastructure like schools and hospitals. In the past century in particular, the sovereign individual became closely linked to a wide range of technologies, including interconnected systems like energy grids, the Internet, mobile phones, and today, artificial intelligence chatbots.
As Perry’s expedition demonstrated, technology is also the backbone of state military sovereignty. Thanks to its technological dominance, the United States has become the world’s leading military power, with More than 750 bases in 80 countries –three times more than all countries combined.
But this panorama of state sovereignty is changing rapidly. While the financial sovereignty of the United States, supported by the status of the dollar as a global reserve currencyremains intact, its economic sovereignty is increasingly threatened by a rising China. In terms of purchasing power parity, China surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest economy by 2014. With an industrial output approximately equal Compared with the United States and the European Union combined, China is the largest trading partner in the world. more than 120 countries.
The two superpowers are currently competing for control of the design, development and production of essential technologies such as semiconductors, AI, synthetic biology, quantum computing and blockchain. A 2023 study commissioned by the US State Department, which track Research input into 64 emerging technologies revealed that China surpasses the United States in more than 80% of these areas, while the United States follows closely behind.
As the US-China rivalry escalates in the technological arena, countries around the world will be forced to choose sides and adopt the distinctive technologies, standards, values and supply chains of their chosen ally. This could open the door to a new era of technological colonialism, undermining global stability.
Interestingly, however, neither the United States nor China has been able to dominate the semiconductor industry, as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in Taiwan and Samsung in South Korea are the only manufacturers capable of producing semiconductors smaller than five nanometers. To change this, both superpowers are building what we call “technological sovereignty circles”—spheres of influence that other countries must join in order to access these critical technologies.
Unlike colonialism of the past, techno-colonialism is not about seizing territory but about controlling the technologies that underpin the global economy and our daily lives. To achieve this, the United States and China are increasingly repatriating the most innovative and complex segments of global supply chains, thereby creating strategic hubs.
China, for example, has gained control of critical raw material supply chains, allowing it to become the leading electric vehicle producer in the world. The United States leads in chip design software thanks to companies such as Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys.
Europe is also eager to establish itself as a key player in this rapidly evolving sector. Although it is home to Danish company ASML, which produces extreme ultraviolet lithography systems crucial to the manufacture of advanced chips, the European Union is a net importer of AI research talentThere are also more science, technology, engineering and mathematics students, as well as computer experts, and create more new businesses that the United States.
When repatriation of operations proves impossible, technological sovereignty circles act as another, more subtle form of coercion. By cultivating deeply rooted asymmetric dependencies, they effectively pressure countries into techno-economic servitude.
The United Kingdom is a prime example. In 2020, the United States forced the United Kingdom to exclude China has banned Chinese technology company Huawei from its 5G network, threatening to cut off access to U.S. intelligence and chip design software. Similarly, the Netherlands came under pressure to stop supplying China with ASML machinery in early January. In response, China has tightened its grip on critical materials to the restrict exports of gallium and germanium, key inputs for microchips and solar panels.
Every country could soon face its own black ship moment. Those without the protection afforded by ownership of critical technologies risk becoming techno-colonies, serving the needs of their technological sovereigns by manufacturing simple electronics, refining rare metals, labeling data sets, or hosting cloud services—from physical mines to data mines. Countries not aligned with the United States or China will find themselves relegated to the status of impoverished technological wastelands.
Amid rising geopolitical tensions, emerging technologies such as quantum computing, AI, blockchain, and synthetic biology promise to push the frontiers of human discovery. As we explain in our forthcoming book, The Team of 8 Billionthe key question is whether these technological innovations will be controlled by a select few as instruments of subjugation or democratized to foster shared prosperity. Rather than ushering in an era of destructive techno-colonialism, these new technologies could help revitalize our rules-based international order and enhance collective governance.
But to achieve this, we must replace today’s black ships with something humanity has yet to invent: a framework for planetary cooperation based on a unified substratum of human interests. Such a framework must reflect our growing interconnectedness and technological dependencies, as well as the increasingly global challenges we face, from war and nuclear proliferation to pandemics and climate change.
Techno-colonialism represents the latest iteration of the age-old struggle for global dominance. Will we become the architects of our own doom or the champions of a brighter future? For better or worse, the answer is in our hands.
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