The world is being transformed by the Internet of Things (the IoT) as ever more devices and activities are linked through the internet and endowed with computing power. This transformation brings an exponential rise in the security challenges inherent in digital connections, especially connections with the networks with politically untrusted countries. Yet, even as Australia’s political relations with China worsen, we see neighbors around East and Southeast Asia continuing to build denser economic links with China through the IoT’s international ecosystems and underlying supply chains.
The complexity and transnational nature of these supply chains and markets are frustrating attempts to shift them away from China, even as distrust of the Chinese state and its digital technology champions grows in the Western world. US efforts to promote technological “decoupling” from China are now well known. But the measures being advanced are simply not on the scale needed to untangle the global Gordian knot of economic interdependence with China.
Southeast Asia’s digital economy is projected to be worth US$1 trillion by 2030.
This knot might be cut through coercive measures, such as the export controls that led non-US firms to break ties with Chinese technology giant Huawei. But the Biden administration has proved reluctant to take this path, even as it follows its predecessor in encouraging a global divorce from China in digital technologies. Meanwhile, the US private sector continues to pour money into China’s digital technology industries. Absent a clear priority for closer economic integration with East and Southeast Asia, the United States is unlikely to turn the regional tide towards closer integration with China.
Continue reading: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/china-australia-and-internet-things
The complexity and transnational nature of these supply chains and markets are frustrating attempts to shift them away from China, even as distrust of the Chinese state and its digital technology champions grows in the Western world. US efforts to promote technological “decoupling” from China are now well known. But the measures being advanced are simply not on the scale needed to untangle the global Gordian knot of economic interdependence with China.
Southeast Asia’s digital economy is projected to be worth US$1 trillion by 2030.
This knot might be cut through coercive measures, such as the export controls that led non-US firms to break ties with Chinese technology giant Huawei. But the Biden administration has proved reluctant to take this path, even as it follows its predecessor in encouraging a global divorce from China in digital technologies. Meanwhile, the US private sector continues to pour money into China’s digital technology industries. Absent a clear priority for closer economic integration with East and Southeast Asia, the United States is unlikely to turn the regional tide towards closer integration with China.
Continue reading: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/china-australia-and-internet-things
