The Race for Tech Supremacy: The U.S. Vs. China  🔗 **Source:** [The Race for Tech Supremacy: The U.S. Vs. China](https://share.snipd.com/episode/2397eaab-2c2c-4008-b258-1cc4135d0544) ## Highlights - **Iran Conflict Diverts U.S. Focus From Asia** - China sees the U.S. pulled back into the Middle East as weakening American focus on Asia and easing pressure on Beijing. - Osnos explains the shift of American assets to Iran reduces U.S. deterrence toward a potential Taiwan contingency. Transcript: Evan Osnos Well, in some sense, it is, from their perspective, always to China's benefit to see the United States drawn back into the Middle East. This has been the place that has consumed so much American attention and blood and treasure, as it's known, over the last generation. And here, all of a sudden, just a couple of years after it seemed as if perhaps the United States was trying to get out of that region, it's now pulled back in. And in quite literal terms, it has meant also that the U.S. Has had to draw on assets, things like aircraft carriers and missiles and munitions that would otherwise have been put in Asia and have had to bring those to the Middle East. And so as a result, it has shifted all of the center of gravity of American national security away from focusing on China and in fact now focused on Iran. Terry Gross So does China now have an open door to Taiwan if we don't have as many ships and weapons there? Evan Osnos Well, it certainly sets up conditions that would make it easier. ([Time 0:01:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/93a133ab-a7fd-47b2-9640-b84834321f2a)) - **U.S. Munitions Dependence On Chinese Factories** - The U.S. now depends on Chinese factories to produce munitions and components needed to defend against China. - Evan Osnos calls this an "exquisite problem" born from decades of supply-chain reliance that can't be fixed overnight. Transcript: Evan Osnos Unfortunately, the irony here is that we are in some ways beholden right now to the Chinese factory in order to produce the munitions that we need to defend American interests from China. That's the exquisite problem that we've found ourselves in after generations of building more and more reliance on Chinese supply. There is an effort in the United States now to say we need to figure out ways of processing our own rare earths. These are these, you know, really important vital minerals or rare earth magnets. But that is a years away problem to solve, meaning it can't be done overnight. So right now, a lot of what you hear from Washington is efforts to try to beat back the perception that the United States is overstretched. ([Time 0:04:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/302d1c17-9a60-4b19-8587-7252d4384a70)) - **Tariffs Pushed China To Automate And Expand Markets** - Trump's tariffs prompted China to diversify markets and cut production costs with automation and AI, increasing exports to other regions. - Osnos notes China grew trade with Europe, Latin America, and Africa despite tariffs by undercutting prices. Transcript: Evan Osnos Well, one of the things was that they were prepared for it, partly because of the first Trump term. They anticipated that he would probably try to introduce big tariffs. So they've spent the years in between the first Trump term and the second Trump term trying to make themselves more self-reliant. Basically, they don't want to have to sell into the American market any more than they do because they know that tariffs would make their goods less attractive. So one of the things they did was begin to build out these markets in other countries, particularly in Latin America, in Africa, and in Europe. So they built their companies now to be able to export even in the face of tariffs by reducing the cost of production. This is an important fact. One of the things they did is they said, you know what, if we bring AI into our factories, we'll be able to cut down on the cost of producing goods. Therefore, they'll be cheaper. And if we sell them into Europe, for instance, we'll probably be able to undercut not only European companies, but also American companies. So the net effect of this is even now more than a year after Trump introduced these tariffs, China has actually built a larger trade deficit with the rest of the world. It is actually now selling more to other countries than it was before, despite these tariffs. ([Time 0:08:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fafc6f3d-2eaf-4b28-85f8-9b1ba1ede0a0)) - **China's Manufacturing Dominance In Clean Tech** - China dominates manufacturing of EVs, solar cells, and lithium-ion batteries, producing more than 70% of global supply. - Osnos cites BYD surpassing Tesla as evidence of China's manufacturing lead in electric vehicles. Transcript: Evan Osnos China has built a large lead when it comes to manufacturing a lot of the hardware of our technological lives. So things that you mentioned earlier, things like electric vehicles, which China now builds more of than anywhere else. A Chinese company called BYD has surpassed Tesla, for instance, as the world's largest maker of electric vehicles. They also make solar cells and lithium ion batteries. And it's really essentially a dominant lead. They make more than 70% of all that worldwide. ([Time 0:14:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/65c36c6d-d63f-495d-a961-d98b77ec4d10)) - **Talent Return Is Boosting China's Biotech Push** - U.S. China Initiative and scrutiny drove roughly 20,000 Chinese-origin scientists out of the U.S. between 2010–2021, fueling China's biotech and drug discovery capacity. - Osnos warns returned talent helps China close the gap in promising pharmaceutical compounds. Transcript: Evan Osnos Yeah, there's a really acute demonstration of this when you look at the science around drug discovery and biotechnology. In Trump's first term, the Department of Justice launched something called the China Initiative, which was intended to root out espionage and trade theft. And as a result, there were a number of cases brought against scientists of Chinese origin. And over time, you began to see that many Chinese scientists in the United States were getting disenchanted. There was a study done by scholars in the U.S. That found that between 2010 and 2021, that 20,000 Chinese scientists left the United States, which is a substantial number. And as one American executive said to me recently, he said, we are now concerned that China is going to do to biotech what it did to electric vehicles, meaning that all of this talent that Has returned to China will be able to contribute to discovering the next generation of major drugs faster than the United States can do it. And we're already seeing that this shows up now in statistics around drug discovery. ([Time 0:15:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5e530750-963f-400c-bc9f-8c52f9218fdd)) - **Hyper Factory Produces A Car Every 76 Seconds** - At Xiaomi's Hyper Factory in Beijing, 200 giant robots and autonomous carts produce a finished car every 76 seconds. - Osnos describes the near-empty floor and the CEO of Ford calling such visits "the most humbling thing he had ever seen." Transcript: Evan Osnos Probably the most dramatic demonstration of this is at a car factory. There's a place in Beijing run by a company called Xiaomi, which started out making smartphones and, you know, kind of household electronics. And they got into the car business about four or five years ago. And they built this enormous factory known as the Hyper Factory. And when you go into the place, there are very few human beings. Honestly, it's kind of feels like you're there on a national holiday or something. There are 200 robots, and they are giants. I mean, they kind of look like these prehistoric animals and they're covered in wires. And there are these little carts that go around that deliver parts to the robots. And the carts in Chinese are telling humans to make way, they say, to kind of get out of the path. And the company, according to its own numbers, produces a finished car every 76 seconds. I have to tell you something, there's a feeling, Terry, when you're there, that you are very conscious of both the reality in front of you and the propaganda around you. These are two coexisting things. Because on the one hand, it's just indisputable that they're generating cars in a sort of futuristic way. And that's not my assessment. That's according to the CEO of Ford Motor Company. When he visited China and factories like this, he came back and said it was the most humbling thing he had ever seen. ([Time 0:17:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/272b6426-596c-450e-be14-29c25fda5112)) - **Demographic Fallout Fuels Youth Pessimism** - The one-child policy's legacy and economic slowdown make young Chinese pessimistic, leading many to avoid marriage and kids as a form of personal control. - Osnos links demographic shortfalls to 200+ million sterilizations and long-term workforce concerns. Transcript: Evan Osnos I think that that experience of the one-child policy looms really heavily in people's minds. I mean, if you don't know what happened, it was kind of amazing. I mean, in the late 1970s, China's leaders said, we want to get rich faster. And as a result, they said, one of the ways to do that, to get more money into everybody's hands is to have fewer people. And what they did is they tasked a group of engineers led by a rocket scientist, a guy named Song Jian. And they said to him, look, figure out a way for us to be able to reduce the scale of the population. And his team decided that the solution was to reduce families to one child only. That was this decision to create a one-child policy. And there was a debate about it at the time. There were other scholars who said, you know, this is going to be hugely disruptive. In fact, it's going to be traumatizing for some people to go from being able to choose how many kids you have to being limited. But Song Jian and his peers were very persuasive. I mean, they were the ones in charge of the new computing assets in China, the supercomputers at the time. And some of their opponents in this debate were still working with an abacus or a pocket calculator. And as a result, the engineers prevailed. China adopted the one-child policy. And it turned out to be traumatic, to be perfectly blunt about it. There were more than 200 million people who were sterilized over the course of this period, 300 million abortions. There was also an economic fiasco created as a result. Today, China has very clearly entered a period where it doesn't have enough workers to be able to support people who are retired. You can look out ahead in the decades to come, and China talks about this constantly, that it doesn't have enough workers to be able to fill its factories because of the effects of this One child policy, that having told people that they couldn't have more than one child, they're now desperately trying to get people to have more kids. They're giving subsidies and incentives, but people aren't responding. And in some ways, Terry, I think it's a bit of a protest against this kind of imagined idea of social engineering, of reaching into the family and twisting the dials and making things Happen. And as a result, people are now saying, you know, this decision about whether to have kids is the one thing over which I can have total control. ([Time 0:27:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6ce56747-5327-4ec5-ac0e-f9097cbcc1c9)) - **Surveillance Tech Has Permeated Daily Life** - Surveillance tech in China extends into everyday life, from cameras monitoring trash separation to office 'promise ledgers' that record commitments for performance reviews. - Osnos highlights cultural acceptance and employer selection effects that normalize pervasive monitoring. Transcript: Evan Osnos Yeah, it's sort of starting to be everywhere. This is one of the most noticeable changes over the last few years. I mean, there are parts of China today where there are cameras watching the trash bins in a neighborhood. And if you fail to separate your household waste from the recyclables, for instance, well, then you might find your face projected on an LED screen for the rest of the neighborhood to See. It's called the exposure station. And, you know, they pixelate the face, which made me wonder, well, then why are they putting it up there at all? And the answer is because you're supposed to feel shame internally and therefore then change your behavior. There are other kinds of surveillance uses in other places. I spoke to an AI entrepreneur who's created software for his own office, which they're now going to start selling elsewhere, that records every office meeting and then tracks whenever You say that you'll do something, make a commitment, and it puts it in what's called the promise ledger. And then the promise ledger is used at the time of your performance review to basically assess whether you've fulfilled your commitments. And I said, is this honestly going to work? I mean, is this going to have a chilling effect? If I was in that meeting, I would just keep my mouth shut. And he said, well, I think it's true that in the U.S. That would have that effect. But here, he said, people have absorbed the idea that the boss has a right to listen to anything. And so it's self-selecting. If you don't want that, you won't work at that company. I think, frankly, he was overstating it a bit. I think some people will certainly be really put off by that. ([Time 0:33:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/be4f2460-d307-4945-afd5-47d4dfbb33c7)) - **Kiosk Measured Emotions To Two Decimal Places** - At an AI expo kiosk Osnos was assessed as 76.67% positive and 23.33% negative, with precise percentages for fear and rage. - He uses the encounter to show China's faith in scientistic precision and social engineering fantasies. Transcript: Evan Osnos Yeah, this really stayed with me. I walked up to a kiosk at an AI expo, and it told me to stand in front of it for 30 seconds. And at the end of that period, it produced a report on the screen. And it said, we have assessed that you are 76.67% positive and something like 23.33% negative. And then the machine also told me that my negative emotions were made up of 13.33% fear and 6.67% rage. Terry Gross That is so bizarre. I'm glad my therapist doesn't speak to me that way. Evan Osnos You know, it really revealed something to me. It made me aware of the idea that there is this kind of faith in scientific precision that is beyond really what is reliable. ([Time 0:35:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cc0f617a-74fa-4daa-a972-f1d06a9c3279)) - **China Uses Tech As A Diplomatic Power Tool** - China exports surveillance and AI tech as a diplomatic instrument, offering tools that help other regimes stay in power and deepening Beijing's global influence. - Osnos cites Nepal police screens labeled 'courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security of China' as an example. Transcript: Evan Osnos One of the things we know from history is that a country that masters the technology of its time can make a big jump in its influence around the world. Take, for example, in the 18th century, you had the United Kingdom master steam technology, the idea that you could run factories from steam. And all of a sudden, that gave them a huge leg up. In the 19th and 20th century, the United States mastered things like the assembly line. And that gave the United States a big leg up against other countries. Right now, China, which is very aware of that history, they often talk very explicitly about it. They say, we missed out on that industrial revolution. And we missed out, in fact, on the information revolution, which was dreamt up in Silicon Valley. They said, we're not going to miss out on the AI revolution. And so they're trying very hard to master it. Xi Jinping calls technology one of the great battlefields of international relations. And I think in practical terms, what it means is we already see the effect. If you go to a place like Nepal today, a country that has its own domestic politics, there are activists there that are calling for things the government may not want. And there was a photo that was leaked from a police station in Nepal that showed this huge bank of screens of surveillance cameras. And beneath that big bank of screens, it said, courtesy of the Ministry of Public Security of China. So China is using its technology as a diplomatic instrument, going out around the world and saying, we will give you the technology to allow you to stay in power. ([Time 0:43:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f02fb04e-2f88-457c-89c4-ec274fbde430))