Artificial Intelligence (AI)

China is rapidly expanding AI infrastructure and scaling projects faster than the U.S., aiming to seize the economic lead from first-to-scale AI use.

Inside China’s Industrial Policy: Trade-Offs Made Clear

by

China’s approach is deliberate, multi-layered, and strategically coordinated over decades, combining long-term planning, financial direction, state involvement, and regional execution. Crucially, it operates with an explicit awareness that unchecked financialization is corrosive, even as structural constraints prevent its full elimination. What distinguishes China is not purity, but active governance of distortion. Planning Against the Pull … Read more

U.S.-China Global Dynamic: How Rivalry Drives Mutual Gain

by

I. The De Facto “G2” Economic Loop A. Mutual Benefit Through Asymmetric Global Roles For decades, the United States and China have functioned as a de facto “G2,” quietly orchestrating a global economic system that primarily serves their own interests. Their roles are complementary and asymmetric: the United States issues the world’s reserve currency, consumes … Read more

TikTok Hearing Exposes Identity Crisis in U.S.–China Rivalry

by

I. Trigger Event: The Tom Cotton–Shou Zi Chew Hearing 1. What Happened During a congressional hearing in February 2024, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton repeatedly pressed TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew with questions centered on Chew’s personal background rather than the company’s operations. Cotton fixated on Chew’s nationality, asking whether he had ever applied for Chinese … Read more

Evaluating China’s Global Price Revolution Strategy

by

This study undertakes a critical examination of the logic behind the so-called “China global price revolution,” exploring how and why it has functioned, where it shows structural weaknesses, and under what conditions it might fail. By situating this analysis within a broader historical and economic context, the discussion considers how China’s impact on global prices … Read more

China’s Low-Cost Power Shift: From Divergence to Convergence

by

I. Reframing the “Great Divergence”: Not Race or Values, but Cost-Efficient Violence and Industrial Power 1. The Foundations of the Great Divergence: Power, Production, and Coercion The historical “Great Divergence” between the Global North and the Global South was not enabled by racial superiority, cultural refinement, or the intrinsic legitimacy of Western values. Rather, it … Read more

The Big Idea Famine: How the U.S. Undermined Its Own Power

by

Over the past several decades, the West—especially the United States—has drifted into what anthropologist David Graeber termed a “big idea famine,” marked by a decline in transformative innovation despite abundant capital and talent. Military and strategic technological progress has slowed as ethical hesitation, bureaucratic inertia, and weak prioritization constrain experimentation, while the civilian tech sector … Read more

Why “The Technological Republic” Sparks Anxiety Over China

by

In The Technological Republic (2025), Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska explore Western, particularly U.S., anxiety over China, framing it as a strategic concern rather than a mere cultural or economic rivalry. The authors argue that this anxiety stems from a fear of losing technological, military, and geopolitical dominance at a time when the … Read more

Why China Builds Hard Tech While Silicon Valley Builds Apps

by

In The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West (2025), Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska argue that Western technology ecosystems—most notably Silicon Valley—drifted away from strategically consequential “hard tech,” becoming instead preoccupied with convenience, lifestyle innovation, and short-term shareholder value. This shift, they contend, left critical domains of … Read more

China’s Role in The Technological Republic: A Wake-Up Call

by

In The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West (2025), Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska present China not only as a technological and commercial rival, but as the central catalyst for a profound moment of reckoning for the West. While the prevailing discourse in Silicon Valley often vacillates … Read more

How China’s Technological Rise Helps Everyday People

by

China’s technological upgrading is good for ordinary Chinese people because income, dignity, and living standards are structurally determined by who controls high-end tools of production. By moving up the technological value chain, China enables surplus value that once leaked abroad to remain within the domestic economy, where it can be redistributed through higher wages, lower … Read more