Is the West Losing China – Again?

The fourth Taiwan Strait crisis has spiked US-China tensions at a parlous moment for the world. Triggered by the brief visit of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taipei and China’s escalation of military exercises around Taiwan (including live fire drills in six “exclusion zones” around the island), the crisis has continued to simmer if not boil, with no obvious end in sight. The crisis is in the first instance a political one. However, it risks transitioning into an economic crisis and, in the worst-case scenario, a military conflict. The larger question is whether it has pushed the West’s relationship with China past a point of no return. Given the over-riding role of technological capability in determining outcomes in all these dimensions, the critical factor is China’s technological trajectory. I discuss the implications