Exciting though the trip was (which author doesn't like to be pursued for autographs?), I was dogged the whole way by a sensation of cognitive dissonance. The companies I saw bubbled with enthusiastic people, impressive products, and CEOs who wanted to discuss ideas. But some of these same CEOs are subject to US sanctions. Bosses like Ren Zhengfei of Huawei are both fans of the West and threats to it.
This cognitive dissonance is a healthy thing to experience once in a while, because it adds a dimension to how we think about China. The country is autocratic, yet it cares about its citizens enough to deliver clean air. Its tech companies are competitors, both in the business and geostrategic sense. Yet at some level they are the same as American tech firms that just want to build cool products.
Hikvision, a sanctioned camera company, hired a senior U.S. human rights lawyer to audit the use of its surveillance technology. It claims to have discontinued products that were too helpful to big brother. It runs a kindergarten to make life easier for young parents on its staff, and when the kindergarten closes in the afternoon, the lobby fills with toddlers. Meanwhile, Ant Group, the Alibaba spin-out that operates a super-app that includes Alipay, has an HR director who rattles off three different measures of the gender gap. The company has a tree-planting program, and a dazzling wall display of exotic seeds adorns a hallway at the office.
Perhaps most significantly, visiting China made me feel that U.S. attempts to hobble it technologically are destined to fail. Back in 2023, I supported the Biden administration's semiconductor export controls; I now think I was mistaken. China is just too energetic and advanced to be prevented from building AI, as the past year has demonstrated. The good news is that China is also far more open to discussions of AI safety than I had been expecting to find. As I wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, the US and China will ultimately have to work together to govern this technology. You can't stop an arms race unless the both racers collaborate.
In other news, I've been following the Gulf War and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz with alarm. The memory of the Suez crisis in 1956 comes to mind: Britain thought it could control a Middle Eastern waterway and ended up plunging itself into a financial crisis. I discussed both this and China with my friend Rebecca Patterson on the latest episode of The Spillover podcast. Please give it a listen, leave a review, and spread the word. As always, feedback most welcome.
Sincerely,
