Will China Become the next Super Power?

The United States will ban the export of cutting edge technologies

Question: Will China Become the next Super Power?
Position1 of 2›: No, China will not become the next superpower
Argument‹3 of 4›: The United States will ban the export of cutting edge technologies

The US will closely guard its innovation, and prevent China from replicating emerging technologies. If China pioneers more tech with global consumer appeal, the US will simply ban the import of these products to an American audience.

The argument

The United States will likely enter a new era of airtight intellectual property (IP). With China investing greatly in the development of their own technology, as well as replicating and creating their own versions of globally used products and services, the US will want to protect its own investments. The reasoning is that technological leadership is not a permanent condition but a lead measured in years, and that a lead can only be held if the knowledge which produced it stays where it was produced. Through non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and data encryption, big tech in the US may be able to insulate themselves against prying eyes in China which is currently one of the worst perpetrators of international IP theft. Those two instruments address the problem at different points. A non-disclosure agreement constrains the people who hold the knowledge legitimately, while encryption constrains access by anyone who has not been given it, so together they are argued to close both the internal and the external route by which a technology can leave the organisation that developed it. Additionally, if China develops a competitive product or technology, the US can limit or completely ban the import of these products. By doing so they will limit Chinese influence on their market, and likely persuade close allies to follow suit. This is the second and, on this argument, the more consequential lever. A technology's value depends on the size of the market it can be sold into, so denying access to the largest consumer markets constrains a rival's returns regardless of how good the product is, and the effect compounds if allied markets adopt the same restriction, since a standard applied across several economies is difficult for anyone to build around. Taken together the two measures are presented as a complete answer: protecting what already exists on one side, and restricting what a competitor could otherwise sell on the other.

Premises

[P1]China's rise depends heavily on acquiring and replicating cutting-edge technology developed abroad, particularly in the United States. [P2] The US can protect its technological lead through stricter IP enforcement, NDAs, and data encryption that insulate firms from Chinese theft. [P3] The US can further blunt Chinese competition by banning imports of rival Chinese products and persuading allies to do the same. [C] Therefore, US restrictions on technology transfer and trade will prevent China from becoming the next superpower.

Counter-arguments

The United States cannot exist in a vacuum insulated from Chinese influence. If China continues to develop its own IP and demonstrates efforts to limit IP theft from the US, it will be difficult to make a case for banning Chinese imports. Additionally, some technologies, such as AI, will be difficult to ignore. Much like AI, it will be difficult to convince consumers that they shouldn't be interested in Chinese products. As evidenced by Huawei's 5G cellular networks, new tech can create a split between the closest of allies. The US decided to bad 5G networks from Huawei in the US, while the UK allowed both infrastructure and consumer goods from the Chinese company to be used, for now.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] China has recently cracked down on IP theft, which may make it difficult to accuse them of stealing ideas and tech. [Rejecting P2] Other major countries can still choose to import Chinese tech, leaving the US in an ideological vice that prevents it from also welcoming imports.