A New Cold War is brewing in China. Recently, the Chinese blogtalk “Voice of Hope” revealed the contents of an internal document produced by the Development and Research Center of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.
The report is authored by Wu Sikang, the director of the Development and Research Center, and is entitled An Undeclared War: The Change of the Landscape of the World will be Faster and More Dramatic than We Have Expected. The report contains an up-to-date assessment that can provide the outside world with an insight into the attitude of the Chinese government in dealing with the trade war and intellectual property rights. It also adds an overview of the undeclared New Cold War between China and the United States.
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The report first emphasized that the U.S. government has undergone a major shift in the strategic positioning toward China from being a “beneficial stakeholder” to being a “major opponent,” and the U.S. policy toward China has gone from “contact strategy” to “containment strategy.”
The report addresses the U.S. government’s move to block China from importing key technology, covers the U.S. economic strategy in re-shaping the world economic map, the short-term trade dispute to long-term trade confrontation, and then entering a long-term New Cold War. It recommends that the Chinese government should clearly understand the seriousness of China-U.S. relations and formulate strategies in acquiring talent and cutting-edge equipment.
The report also pointed out the impossibility of China’s strategy of hoping to unite the world’s other advanced economies against the United States after the start of the trade war. High-level free trade agreements between developed countries in the West follow a unified international rule. These policies exclude China (the Chinese Communist Party) and will cause China to be isolated by the world.
Obtaining high-tech intellectual property rights in China’s New Cold War
The second part of the report specifically addresses the issue of the war for talent and listed six recommendations that China should follow to obtain high-tech intellectual property rights from the U.S. and other developed countries:
- China needs to adopt a more precise, better-concealed, and special way to expedite the introduction of strategically important science and technology talent, especially non-Chinese talent. This recommendation indicates China needs to determine what kind of talent is most needed and then seek out individuals from third-world countries who have completed their education in developed countries. The report also mentioned that China should learn a lesson from the “Thousand Talents Program,” which caught the attention of the FBI.
- China must, at all costs, adopt all kinds of unconventional means and do everything possible to import every sort of cutting-edge scientific equipment and instruments through all kinds of channels.
- China needs to build high-level science and technology think tanks as fast as possible to analyze and identify development trends of advanced international science and technology. The report suggests that China must take advantage of Hong Kong’s easy access to international science and technology data and build an international science research information database.
- China must proactively counter the United States’ blockade in science and technology and initiate the launch of international scientific and technological events. These would include hosting various academic exchanges, science and technology exhibitions, launching international major science projects and plans, and making basic research international cooperation a major strategy. The endeavors of Chinese people and Chinese enterprises to establish universities and research institutions in overseas countries must be supported.
- China has to exploit the advantages brought about by the differences between the legal and institutional systems of China and the United States and to expedite the development of new types of industry and businesses. China is to look into the development of an Internet-based economy by expediting the development of new economic and business models to get an upper hand in global, Internet-related business competition and also the development of new technology in areas such as biomedical, which is closely related to regulations and rules.
- China needs to establish a special service organization to acquire non-Chinese international talent for global scientific and high-tech industrialization achievements and to provide undifferentiated support for non-Chinese international talent in terms of policies, treatment, and facilities.
In the blogtalk “Voice of Hope,” it was pointed out that from the contents of this report, it can be clearly seen that China’s stance against the United States and the continued theft of U.S. intellectual property rights will not change, but will become more subtle in its practice.
Furthermore, the report was presented as an official document to Wang Weizhong, Secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee on September 29. It was finally transferred to the Development and Reform Commission of Shenzhen Economic Development and Reform Affairs on October 11 for its members to read, study, evaluate, and discuss the recommendations.
Translated by Chua BC
