US Approach to Technology Controls Marred by 'Little Understanding,' No Leading Voice, Panelist Says

The U.S. government lacks technical knowledge and a single, leading voice in its approach to technology competition with China, said Adam Segal, the emerging technologies chair at the Council on Foreign Relations. Segal, speaking during an Oct. 4 Brookings Institution panel about the U.S.-China technology relationship, said U.S. industries are concerned that technology policies, such as certain export controls, are being made without a full understanding of their impacts.

“Everything I hear from people both on the Hill and in the private sector is the policies are often designed with very little understanding of the second-order or third-order -- much less fourth- or fifth-order -- outcomes,” Segal said. “Especially when we’re talking about supply chains and how you might affect those and decide which companies are going to move up the value chain.”

Segal said the U.S. needs to better “address the technical knowledge gap,” such as increasing fellowships for tech experts, which should “be happening now,” Segal said. “We have to have a much better sense of the technologies involved and how they're actually deployed across a range of sectors. [Artificial Intelligence] is not going to look the same as quantum, which is not going to look the same as semiconductors, even though we’re all clumping them together as emerging technologies.” The Commerce Department is currently working on export control regulations on both emerging and foundational technologies (see 1909060041).

U.S. industries also say there doesn’t seem to be a single voice for the U.S.’s approach to technology as it relates to China, Segal said. “There are many voices, often competing, and not explicitly being driven from executive [branch] agencies,” he said.

Segal pointed to a bill introduced in January by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., that would create an Office of Critical Technologies & Security at the White House. The bill was an “attempt to kind of force the White House’s hand and say, ‘if you guys are not going to do this … we’ll create an alternative, ’” Segal said. “There seems to be, from my perspective, a need for a comprehensive view of the technologies that we’re worried about, the technologies we’re competing over.”

Abraham Newman, director of the Mortara Center for International Studies at Georgetown University, said he doesn't believe the U.S. “has a clear strategy of what it’s pursuing vis-a-vis China in the technology sphere.” He also said the U.S.’s approach should be coordinated with trading partners. “I don’t have the sense that the current government is pursuing that,” he said during the panel. A Commerce official in July said the agency is committed to issuing export regulations of U.S. technologies that it can “propose to multilateral bodies” (see 1907110056).

Segal said the U.S.’s current approach doesn't reflect that. “I think they’re squandering it, quite honestly,” he said. Europe has a “genuine” concern over its “technology flows” with China, Segal said, making it a prime partner for the U.S. to work with. The European Commission has even called for policies similar to those imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., Segal said.

“I think there is concern that we could've gone building it in a different way,” Segal said. “As opposed to showing up and saying, ‘here’s what you’re going to do,’” the U.S. should’ve asked “what should we all do together?”