On the evening of September 24, 2021, the Institute of International & Strategic Studies (IISS), Peking University (PKU) held the 53rd "North Pavilion Seminar" series lectures. Associate Professor Lei Shaohua at the School of International Studies (SIS), PKU, gave a lecture titled "Technology, Industry and China-U.S. Competition". The lecture was hosted by Gui Yongtao, Vice President of the IISS and Vice President of the SIS, PKU.

Associate Prof. Lei Shaohua first pointed out that the new race track of China-U.S. competition nowadays is industry. He analyzed the reasons for the formation of U.S. technological superiority after World War II and the reasons for its current decline, and summarized the laws and characteristics of modern technological development.

After that, Associate Prof. Lei compared the "global industrial structure envisioned by the U.S." with the "global industrial structure in reality". He stated that since China joined the WTO in 2001 and was included in the global division of labor system, it has not only participated in labor-intensive and capital-labor-intensive industries, but become the only country that can fully participate in the global industrial structure, including the technology-intensive industries in which the U.S. has an absolute advantage, gradually becoming the core of the global value chain. The global industrial structure has deviated from the industrial structure envisioned by the U.S. Therefore, after the China-U.S. relations entered a new race track, high-tech companies, which represent the highest level of technology-intensive industries, has become the new players on the track, and cracking down on the high-tech companies became the way for the U.S. to maintain its leading edge.

Associate Prof. Lei then described the picture of the world industrial landscape in the context of China-U.S. cooperation and competition in detail, pointing out that the most important competition takes place between China and the U.S., and that China's key advantage lies in the market application of technology. He mentioned that technology becomes technical know-how only when it is applied by the market, otherwise it is only laboratory research. He illustrated with examples such as the development of artificial intelligence image recognition and self-driving cars, and the construction of 5G base stations. The market application of new technologies cannot be separated from supporting facilities, and Associate Prof. Lei pointed out the institutional advantage China has in the competition from this perspective. The market mechanism of the U.S. is not adapted to today's new phase of mega-capital investment and mega-infrastructure construction. Taking digital infrastructure as an example, China had 1 million 5G base stations by July 2021, while the rest of the world combined was less than 400,000. Associate Prof. Lei also pointed out that in the development of China's industry, the combination of speed, technology and industrial chain allows regional development to move in the direction of building mega-scale industrial clusters, thus greatly reducing production costs. 

Finally, Associate Prof. Lei concluded that the new race track China and the U.S. have entered has four aspects: R&D of new technology, new infrastructure, new industrial clusters, and new market scale, which has developed new academic thinking therefrom. According to him, the new race track not only reveals the nature of China-U.S. competition, but has important implications for the development of international relations theory.

During the Q&A session, Associate Prof. Lei had exchanges and discussions with the teachers and students present at the lecture on issues such as the specificity of China's industrial development mode compared to other modes in history in terms of international competition, China's external environment under the context of the new race track, and the current industrial outflow from China. (Contributed by Wang Shiyu)

Editor: Li Fangqi   Photographer: Zheng Peijie