The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State

Speaker(s): Dr. Tai Ming Cheung (Director, University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation; Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego)

Date: 29 March 2023

Speaker Session Summary

SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Tai Ming Cheung (Director, University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation; Professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego) as part of its SMA INDOPACOM Speaker Series.

China has been strengthening its techno-security state with the ultimate ambition of rivaling the US’ global geopolitical influence and military power by 2049 and fully modernizing its military force by 2035. Dr. Cheung defined the techno-security domain as “where national security, technological innovation, military power, and economic development converge.” He pointed out that this is where the US-China great power competition converges and that the US has already competed in a great power competition using its techno-security domain (i.e., in the 1980s against both Russia and Japan). Chinese president, Xi Jinping, was expected to continue his predecessors’ focus on economic development upon taking office; however, he has increasingly bridged the gap between China’s economic growth and facets of national security. President Xi has continued to conflate China’s national economic and security development during his third term in office, beginning to accelerate the modernization of certain parts of China’s armed forces.

While China’s near-term goal is having a fully modernized military force by 2035, President Xi has set a goal of escalating current military modernization. For China to reach this goal, it will have to focus on innovation with an emphasis on quality over quantity, argued Dr. Cheung. Civil-military collaboration with the private sector will also be necessary for China to achieve the level of innovation required to turn its armed forces into a world-class power during the next few decades. While China has a robust private sector—which is similar to the US in some ways—its top-down style of governance limits its ability to foster innovation in its private sector. Dr. Cheung gave several examples of how China’s and the US’ techno-security domains matchup—including their civil-military sector relationships—concluding that the US still maintains an overall strategic advantage. 

Briefing Materials

Biography: Tai Ming Cheung is director of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and a professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. Among the areas of his research focus include China’s efforts to become a world-class science and technology power, and the relationship between geo-economics, innovation, and national security. He is the author of Innovate to Dominate: The Rise of the Chinese Techno-Security State (Cornell University Press, 2022), co-editor of The Gathering Pacific Storm: Emerging US-China Strategic Competition in Defense Technological and Industrial Development (Cambria Press, 2018), editor of Forging China’s Military Might: A New Framework for Assessing Innovation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), and author of Fortifying China: The Struggle to Build a Modern Defense Economy (Cornell University Press, 2009). He was based Hong Kong, China, and Japan from the mid-1980s to 2002 covering political, economic, and strategic developments in Greater China and East Asia, first as a journalist for the Far Eastern Economic Review from 1988-1993 and subsequently as a political and business risk consultant. Dr. Cheung has a PhD in War Studies from King’s College, London.