Zha Daojiong

Opinion | The US and China can turn the page on age-old tech rivalry with coronavirus vaccine cooperation

Even if freeing all technology from geopolitical rivalry is impossible, the US and China can still mark out the boundaries of their competition by cooperating on a Covid-19 vaccine, for the good of all humanity

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Zha Daojiong

Published: 1:30am, 9 Oct 2020Updated: 8:42pm, 25 Nov 2020

Tensions over technology between China and the United States have existed right from the beginning of their relationship – for both countries, technology has always loomed large, embodying achievement and hope on the one hand, and loss and fear on the other.

The US-Soviet collaboration in the depths of a raging Cold War that led to vaccines against smallpox and polio worldwide puts to shame the lack of US-China collaboration in the Covid-19 pandemic. What can be done to handle the US-China tension over technology?

Two episodes of history merit brief mention. The first is that China’s Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway, the first to be designed and built indigenously from 1905-09, benefited greatly from American input.

Leading its construction was Zhan Tianyou, who majored in civil and railway engineering at Yale University as a student on an educational mission sent by the Qing dynasty. Before then, foreign railway technologies were available and in competition in China.

The other example is the American project to establish a radiotelegraphy presence in China, which achieved limited results despite efforts by the Federal Telegraph Company and Radio Corporation of America from 1916-1941.