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OpinionChina Opinion
Dov H. Levin
Dov H. Levin

OpinionUS hawks are wrong: China’s rise in science benefits America too

Greater competition may curb the influence of politics and vested interests distorting the US innovation system

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Dov H. Levin
As Chinese science makes great strides, some US China hawks have been sounding the alarm. In their view, Chinese scientific progress is a significant national security threat to the United States, as it signals the relative decline of US scientific dominance and potentially creates dependence on China.
In one extreme case of this view, Leland Miller, a senior consultant for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, declared in a recent interview that China discovering a cure for cancer would pose a national security threat to the US as a result of its supposed supply chain implications.

This view is misguided. The rise of Chinese science is not just a boon to China itself, but is also of benefit to the US and the rest of the world.

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The scientific and economic dominance of the US for much of the post-World War II era has had a downside for Americans: scientific progress relevant to their life can be held hostage by US domestic politics. When a US administration turns hostile to useful scientific discoveries, the existence of another major scientific power with different preferences – such as China – can help Americans avoid losing out as a result of the capricious whims of their own political system.

American science, like in many other countries, is largely based on funding from various levels of its own government. The eventual development of scientific discoveries into products that can improve people’s lives is also usually commercially feasible only with the permission of various US government regulatory bodies.
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The post-war scientific and economic dominance of the US – with the US government being the biggest funder of basic research, and with the US as the key market for many of the resultant products – has meant the US government has de facto veto power on scientific progress and its diffusion. Scientific fields and their resulting consumer products, if undesired by small yet influential parts of the US public or by US politicians, can die off or be stunted for many years.

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