Opinion | US-China decoupling: Beijing has options beyond Russia in navigating geopolitics of technology

The Group of 20 summit last month gave the world contrasting images of its two leading autocratic powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin was not even present, and his foreign minister left early after sitting through a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was specially invited.

But at the same event, leaders from around the world met bilaterally with President Xi Jinping, even walking across the stage to him as if he were hosting the event in China. China’s weight in the global economy was also on display two weeks before when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Beijing with a business delegation, not long after Xi’s anointment for a new leadership term at the 20th party congress.

But they have a common rival in the United States, so they also have an interest in partnership, to the extent that this helps balance US advantages in global contests for power.

Nowhere are these US advantages greater than in technology. US firms still occupy the commanding heights of key technology supply chains, a structural feature of the world economy that Washington can wield against its rivals. It did so against Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The US is now targeting China with its leverage over the supply chain for semiconductors, with sweeping export controls that represent the first move in an apparent strategy of technological containment. But the US is already discovering the frictions of weaponising interdependence in a world where key technology is controlled by other states.