Will China Attain Technological Supremacy?

Alfredo Toro Hardy on how Trump is giving China a big boost in its aspirations for attaining technological supremacy.

In the multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham explained how between first century BC and 15^th century AD, China held technological supremacy. Moreover, upon reaching the West, Chinese inventions helped in the transition between feudalism and capitalism. After the 16^th century, though, the West began surpassing China in scientific innovations. In many cases, by taking advantage of Chinese technologies (Finlay, 2000).

China’s current march towards technological supremacy is seen not only as a “resurrection” of the primacy that it held during most of human history, but as payback time for the West’s historical debt. Not surprisingly, China’s dynamic technological growth was initially fuelled by absorbing Western technology. This accorded with its policy of “picking from the low-hanging fruits”. 

The easy way

The above policy meant acquiring technology the easy way. This was fundamentally nurtured by three sources: Buying and financing foreign technology; forcing technology transfer; and stealing foreign technology.

Buying technology usually implied acquiring the Western companies that produced it. This went from MG to Volvo, from IBM’s Personal Computers Division to Thompson, From Cirrus Wind Energy to Motorola Mobility, from General Electric Appliance Business to Pirelli and Ingram Micro. Acquiring significant stakes in foreign technological companies was a variant to buying the majority of its stockholding. A 2011 report commissioned by the Asia Society of New York forecasted that in the second decade of the new century China would invest around US$2 trillion in buying foreign technological companies (Barboza, 2011).

An alternative to acquiring the majority stockholding or parts thereof of established foreign companies was the funding of tech startups. As a result, China became a powerful source of venture capital in the U.S. and Europe. In 2019, it was estimated that Chinese entities had poured US$14 billion into American startups (Somerville, 2019).

Forcing technological transfer as a precondition for doing business in China was next in line. Numerous Western countries willingly submitted to it as a way of accessing a market that in 2018 exhibited a population of 1,400 million and a GDP of US$14.2 trillion. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics: 

“China adopted a set of policies deliberately designed to force foreign multinationals to transfer strategically sensitive technologies to indigenous Chinese firms (…) In many cases, technology transfers are effectively required by China’s foreign direct investment regime, which closes off important sectors of the economy to foreign firms unless they enter into joint ventures with Chinese entities they do not control” (Branstetter, 2019).

Stealing Western technology was also a good way of “picking from the low-hanging fruits”. This was tantamount to industrial espionage, which resulted from both cyber-theft and direct human effort. Military and civilian American technology was stolen at a grand scale through cyber-espionage. An independent 2018 commission estimated that the annual loss for America’s economy resulting from cyber-enabled theft surpassed US$300 billion, with 80% of that theft originating in China (Laskai and Segal, 2018). As FBI Director James Comey said in 2014: “There’s only two types of big corporations in America. Those that have been hacked by the Chinese or those who don’t yet know they’ve been hacked by the Chinese” (Allison, 2018).

But direct human espionage was also involved. Especially so, as China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law demands that Chinese organizations and citizens must provide support and assistance to the State in national intelligence efforts (Yi-Zheng, 2019). This has translated into huge mistrust towards the Chinese. In Mark Magnier’s words: “Students, professors and researchers of Chinese descent face growing suspicion as potential spies”. (Magnier, 2019).

Mature and thriving 

Although the contribution to China’s technological advances resulting from its “picking from the low hanging fruits” was fundamental in its initial stages, the country’s indigenous innovation process matured. It did it so successfully that it entered into direct competition with the United States. Already in 2019, a Council on Foreign Relations’ report forecasted that after 2030 China would become the world’s largest spender on research and development (Manyika and McRaven, 2019).  

In 2020, on its part, Brookings reported that: 

“China’s rapid technological advances are playing a leading role in contemporary technological competition (…) While the U.S. has maintained its position as the technologically dominant power for decades, China has made enormous investments and implemented policies that have contributed significantly to its economic growth, military capability, and global influence. In some areas, China has eclipsed, or is on the verge of eclipsing, the United States – particularly in the rapid deployment of certain technologies” (Chhabra, Doshi, Hass and Kimball, 2020).

As things stand today, China excels in areas such as the following: 

•  Artificial Intelligence, where Chinese firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba are closing the gap with U.S. giants, thanks to lower-cost and open-source models (Lin, Chin and Huang, 2025).
• Quantum technologies, where China has become the world’s leader in the Quantum communication (Information Technology & Innovation Report, 2024).
• 5G Technology, where China leads worldwide with over 2.7 million 5G base stations (LabNews, 2025).
• Electric vehicles, where Chinese automakers like Chery and BYD lead global sales (Financial Times, 2025).
• Electric batteries, where companies like CATL or BYD produce between 60 to 75 percent of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, and where a majority of cobalt and graphite batteries are produced (LabNews, 2025).
• Solar panels, where China accounts for about 70% of global module production (Salitskii and Salitskaya, 2022).
• Computing, where China’s market share in the global computing industry is expected to reach 25% by the end of the decade, against the U.S.’ 18% (Bhardwaj, 2025).
• Drones, where China controls 70% to 80% of the global commercial drone market (Laszlo, 2025).
• Robotics, where the country accounts for 51% of the global installations of industrial robots (Vella, 2024).
• Hypersonic and Defence technologies, where China leads in hypersonics, advanced aircraft engines, electronic warfare, and undersea technologies, dominating in 19 of 23 critical research areas according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Firspost, 2023).
• Space race, where China competes head-to-head with the U.S. in areas such as lunar exploration, satellite infrastructure, military space capabilities and commercialization (Kluger, 2024; Pao, 2025).
• High-Speed Rail, where China holds the world’s leadership in both scale and technological advancement, with more than two thirds of the global network total, and innovations such as the smart train (CGTN, 2025; Chi, 2025).

These impressive achievements, among many others, have been attained through a combination of different things - industrial and technological policies (e.g. Made in China 2025; Five-Year plans; National Medium Term Science and Development Plan; Strategic Emerging Industries Program; Military-Civil Fusion Program), massive R&D spending (which now equals 2.7% of the country’s GDP), emphasis in producing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics graduates (which currently reach 4.7 million annually), cross-sectors synergy, and the sheer scale of the country which amplifies everything (e.g. production, data, talent, funding).

China’s technological challenge represents a defining moment for the United States, which for decades has been the dominant technological power. If America doesn’t respond quickly and appropriately, it runs the risk of being left behind. The phrase “only the paranoid survives”, famously associated to Andrew Grove, not only applies to technological corporations but also to national states. 

Trump’s answer

In this regard, it should be asked what Donald Trump is doing to keep China’s technological supremacy at bay? A list of Trump’s initiatives speak by themselves:

• His “big beautiful bill” quickly phases out tax credits enjoyed by electric vehicles and utility-scale solar and wind, thus handing to China the future of electric and autonomous vehicles as well as solar and wind energy. This not only affects the country’s ability to generate huge amounts of electricity at affordable prices (and in a clean way), but its ability to develop A.I. engines that consume immense amounts of electricity (Friedman, 2025).
• The “big beautiful bill” also expands tax on endowments that universities require for financial aid, rolls back student loan protections and caps the amounts students can borrow for graduate programs. All of it makes higher education less affordable for Americans (Patel, 2025).
• Trump is in the process of defunding colleges from federal money, with particular reference to elite universities, while at the same time trying to prevent them from enrolling international students (Blinder, 2025).
• Budgets from the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Institutes of Health face reductions of 56%, 50% and 40% respectively (Frey, 2025).
• Trump’s administration has terminated 2,100 public health research grants valued at more than $US12 billion (Woodward and Ellgren, 2025).
• More than 1,200 American scientists are considering leaving the country and relocating in Europe or Canada, as a result of Trump’s actions (Duster, 2025).
• Bans on international students and pugnacity toward universities have made the U.S. hostile to global talent (Frey, 2025).

In short, thanks to Trump China has significantly shortened the route for recuperating the global technological supremacy that it enjoyed until the 15^th century.

Alfredo Toro Hardy, PhD, is a retired Venezuelan career diplomat, scholar and author. Former Ambassador to the U.S., U.K., Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Chile and Singapore. Author or co-author of thirty-six books on international affairs. Former Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton and Brasilia universities. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and a member of the Review Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center.

Photo by julie aagaard

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