The headlines about the United States and China have been dominated by the spread of COVID-19 and trade deal negotiations. Experts in U.S.-China relations have warned against preemptive disengagement in a time of increased need for international cooperation and coordination, even as tensions between the two countries continue to escalate in the media.

From Adam Segal's perspective, as an expert in security issues, technology development, and Chinese domestic and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the emerging considerations that will prominently affect the tone and timbre of the relationship between the United States and China in the coming years is how the two nations compete with one another in technological and scientific research and innovation. He delved further into this topic in a lecture as part of the China Program's winter/spring colloquia series.

[To get more stories like this delivered to your inbox, sign up for our newsletters]

As Segal and others describe, both the United States and China benefitted immensely from the globalization of scientific research and collaboration, but in recent years, both have also become wary of sharing talent and resources too broadly or across too many sectors. As a result, each country has taken various measures in an attempt to gain and regain perceived advantages over the other.

As China has tried to move up the so-called economic value chain from being an overwhelmingly manufacturing and heavy industry-based economy to being a leader in tech and digital economies, it has simultaneously tried to wean itself from a dependence on foreign technological infrastructure. In its efforts to create indigenous innovation and technological growth, it has openly tried to court talent and intelligence from overseas. To the United State's rising concern, however, the Chinese government has been less open about the means used to accomplish this aim.

On its part, the United States has upped its efforts to expand cybersecurity research and initiatives. The Trump administration has very vocally critiqued companies such as Huawei and urged allies to step back from business with the telecom and networking giant. Similarly, allegations of espionage against native Chinese and Chinese-American scientists and academics have escalated in recent months.

Segal argues that these simmering tensions signify the growing awareness each country has of the other's increasing capabilities in the cybersphere, as well as a heightened understanding and awareness of the shortcomings of their own systems.

"I think technology, which had usually been a fifth, sixth, seventh on the agenda in the U.S.-China relationship, is going to continue to be one of the defining issues that structure the relationship, and increasingly is one not just about concerns about national security, but about values and how we think about how technology is applied, and governance issues."

To watch Segal's full lecture, click the video below or find it on our YouTube channel. A transcript of his remarks is available

As a U.S.-China trade deal hangs in the balance and the world’s two largest economies are locked in a race for technological supremacy, concerns have arisen about China’s counterintelligence threat to the United States. In July 2019, FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that China poses the most severe counterintelligence threat to the United States than any other country, and described that national security and economic espionage threat as “deep and diverse and wide and vexing.” He noted that the FBI has to contend not only with Chinese officials but also with “nontraditional collectors,” including Chinese scientists and students who are looking to steal American innovation. There are currently multiple legislative proposals in Congress, all of which, in one way or another, are aimed at limiting university collaboration with Chinese nationals and the education of Chinese nationals in “strategic” research fields by U.S. higher education institutions.

These legislative endeavors, however, argues Arthur Bienenstock, co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Scientific Partnerships, may endanger the U.S. science and technology workforce and limit the effectiveness of U.S. academic research, thus weakening the very fields the nation is most anxious to protect.

Bienenstock is also a member of the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, and former associate director for science of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. At Stanford, he is special assistant to the President for federal research policy, associate director of the Wallenberg Research Link, and professor emeritus of photon science. At a recent lecture hosted by APARC’s China Program, Bienenstock discussed some of the proposed legislation and federal acts regarding international scientific collaboration with China and their implications for the U.S. scientific workforce. He cautioned U.S policymakers against an expansive interpretation of what constitutes “sensitive research” in strategic areas, such as artificial intelligence and quantum science, and offered a framework for determining when scientific research should be subject to greater control.

[To get more stories like this delivered to your inbox sign up for APARC newsletters]

Image

We must come to terms with reality, claimed Bienenstock, presenting evidence that the United States is no longer the dominant funder of science and technology research; that Chinese nationals constitute a very significant portion of the U.S. workforce in computer science, engineering, and mathematics; and that the U.S. science and technology workforce is highly dependent on Chinese graduate students.

The United States must maintain and strengthen its scientific and technological efforts if it is to maintain a leadership position, Bienenstock said. To do so, he emphasized, U.S. universities must maintain their openness, and lawmakers, in turn, must thoughtfully understand the benefits of collaboration with Chinese scientists and engineers as well as keep the country attractive for Chinese students.

Listen to highlights from Bienenstock’s presentation on our SoundCloud channel. A transcript is available below.

Photo: Arthur Bienenstock (right) and APARC DIrector Gi-Wook Shin (credit: Andrea Brown).

“Our dystopian present is your dystopian future if nothing significant is done,” cautioned Ressa, urging the Stanford community to pressure technology platforms and social media to stop disinformation spread.

“This is an existential moment for global power structures, turned upside down by technology. When journalists globally are under attack, democracy is under attack.” With these words, the internationally-esteemed investigative journalist and press freedom champion Maria Ressa, winner of the 2019 Shorenstein Journalism Award, opened her keynote address at a lunchtime ceremony, held at Stanford on October 21.

Ressa knows first-hand the terrifying reality of continuously being subject to online attacks and politically motivated attempts by the government to silence and intimidate. As CEO and executive editor of Rappler, she has led the Philippine independent news platform in shining critical light on the Duterte administration's policies and actions. President Duterte in turn has made no secret of his dislike for Ressa and Rappler, accusing the platform for carrying "fake news." Ressa has been arrested twice this year, accused of corporate tax evasion and of violating security laws, and slapped with charges of cyber libel for a report that was published before the libel law came into effect. Since Duterte’s election in summer 2016, the Philippine government has filed at least 11 cases and investigations against Ressa and Rappler.

“And all because I’m a journalist,” she says.

Speaking at the Shorenstein Award’s eighteenth annual panel discussion, Ressa detailed the devastating effects that disinformation has had on democracy and societal cohesion in the Philippines. She vividly explained why each and every one of us should be gravely concerned about the breaking down of the information ecosystem in a country halfway around the world. The Philippines, she said, is a case study of how attacks on truth and facts rip the heart out of civic engagement and gradually kill democracy, “a death by a thousand cuts.”

Ressa was joined on the panel by Stanford’s Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Raju Narisetti, director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism and professor of professional practice at Columbia Journalism School, who also serves on the selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award. Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Program Director Donald K. Emmerson chaired the discussion.

[To get more stories like this delivered directly to your inbox sign up to receive our newsletters.] 

A Cautionary Tale

Modern authoritarians follow a familiar playbook, noted Ressa, for they know well that “If you can make people believe lies are the facts, then you can control them.” Their first step is to lie all the time. The second is to argue their opponents and the journalists are the ones who lie. Then finally everyone looks around and says, "What's truth?" And when there is no truth resistance is impossible.

Ressa went on to describe detailed examples of patriotic trolling in the Philippines, that is, how state-sponsored online hate and harassment campaigns silence and intimidate journalists and others who voice criticism of the Duterte administration. Instead of censoring, she said, state agents now flood the information ecosystem with lies, blurring the line between fact and fiction. These information operations are conducted through the weaponization of technology and social media platforms, first and foremost Facebook. Ressa’s team at Rappler uses network analysis methods to unveil the flow and spread of online disinformation and harassment campaigns on Facebook and from there to other platforms as well as traditional and state media.

Ressa urged the packed audience of campus and community members to remember that “Without facts you cannot have truth, without truth you cannot have trust, and without any of these three democracy as we know it is dead. The public sphere is dead […] our Philippine dystopian present is your dystopian future, if nothing significant is done.”

She closed her keynote by pleading: “Please push tech platforms and social media to do something to stop the lies from spreading. Lies laced with anger and hate spread faster than facts. Fight  for your rights.”

Watch Ressa’s keynote and the entire panel proceedings here or on our YouTube channel. You can also listen to Ressa’s keynote below and on our SoundCloud channel. A transcript of the keynote address is available below.

No Ministry of Truth

Is the attack on truth a technological problem, and can it have a technological solution? It's naïve, said Diamond, to think that there is a purely technological solution or that we can rein in the alarming developments in the Philippines and elsewhere without addressing their technological elements and the economic incentives underlying these elements. “There has to be a macro political element of response,” argued Diamond, “which obviously has to involve advanced liberal democracies condemning and drawing boundaries around the murderous authoritarianism of Rodrigo Duterte.”

Image

Left to right: Donald K. Emmerson, Maria Ressa, Raju Narisetti, Larry Diamond.

Narisetti emphasized the need to look at the problem and its potential solutions holistically and bear in mind that solutions must come from multiple areas. “We must remember that technology has value, but it has no values. It's a matter of who is using it and how they're using it.” And while we certainly don't want Facebook to be the Ministry of Truth, continued Narisetti, by no means do we want Congress to take on that role. He pointed to specific possible regulatory solutions, such as insisting Facebook enable its users to port their complete data outside of the platform if they wish to do so, or establishing a system of data and privacy courts.

Commitment to Journalism that Courageously Seeks Accuracy

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which is sponsored by APARC, was presented to Ressa at a private evening ceremony. “You would be hard pressed to find a person whose work more fully embodies the ideals that define journalism than Maria Ressa,” said James Hamilton, Stanford’s Hearst Professor of Communication, Chair of the Department of Communication, Director of the Stanford Journalism Program, who also serves on the selection committee for the award. Shorenstein APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin joined Hamilton in co-presenting Ressa the award.

The Shorenstein Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, recognizes accomplished journalists committed to critical reporting on and exploring the complexities of Asia through their writing. It alternates between honoring recipients from the West, who mainly address American audiences, and recipients from Asia, who often work on the frontline of the battle for freedom of the press in their countries. Established in 2002, the award honors the legacy of APARC benefactor Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, who was passionate about promoting both excellence in journalism and a deeper understanding of Asia.