U.S. President-elect Joe Biden comments on Electoral University certification at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, on December 14, 2020.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images
GUANGZHOU, China – President-elect Joe Biden is unlikely to reverse President Donald Trump’s challenge to China’s technology industry and technology companies, but Biden is likely to be more focused and collaborating with allies, according to experts told CNBC.
During his presidency, Trump has tried to challenge the Chinese technology industry through sanctions, executive orders and other actions. Biden will likely continue with this policy.
“The bullet has left the chamber. Trump has completely altered the status quo that has existed between the United States and China for decades,” said Abishur Prakash, a geopolitics specialist at the Center for Innovating the Future (CIF), a consultancy with based in Toronto, he told CNBC by email.
Collaboration with allies
The approach of cutting China’s technology companies could continue under a Biden presidency.
“I think the the administrator will still see technology as an important source of competition and will continue some of Trump’s approaches to cutting off the flow of critical technology to China, ”said Adam Segal, director of the Council on Foreign’s digital and cyberspace policy program Relations (CFR).
“The difference is that the process will be more collaborative, with both the private sector and allies, and more focused on a narrower set of technologies,” he told CNBC in an email.
A Biden team’s preference will likely be to control fewer technologies, but to set up high walls around those deemed necessary to protect for national security reasons.
Paul Triolo, head of Eurasia Group’s geotechnology risk practice consultancy, agreed that the Biden administration will work with its allies on its strategy regarding Chinese technology.
Triolo told CNBC’s Biden team that it will “clarify what needs to be controlled within the areas of emerging and core technologies.” Some of these areas include artificial intelligence and so-called quantum computing, the new generation of computing that uses quantum physics to solve problems that existing computers take years to solve.
“Here the preference of a Biden team will probably be to control fewer technologies, but to establish high walls around those that are deemed necessary to protect for reasons of national security,” Triolo said in an email. “Also, I hope the definition of what technologies are critical to controlling for national security reasons is much clearer under a Biden administration than during the Trump years.”
Prakash says Biden will likely continue Trump’s push to exclude Chinese vendors from next-generation 5G mobile networks around the world. The Trump administration has been pushing allies to cut Huawei off its networks. Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom have done just that.
The geopolitical specialist said Biden could also “recalibrate” itself in areas such as the blacklist of Chinese companies or certain export controls, while also wanting to innovate in terms of its focus on other areas, such as the merger and acquisition data rules.
One thing is for sure: the technological battle between the US and China will continue under a Biden presidency.
“The US doesn’t have too many options. Either it allows China to dominate the world through technology or challenge it,” Prakash said.