Geopolitical Technology Competition (US-China)

Geopolitical technology competition, in the US-China context, refers to the systematic rivalry between the United States and the People's Republic of China for dominance in the development, deployment, control, and standardization of critical and emerging technologies—including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, 5G and next-generation telecommunications, quantum computing, and digital infrastructure—with both economic supremacy and national security advantage as primary objectives. This competition is characterized by export controls, investment screening, procurement restrictions, industrial policy subsidies, standards body influence campaigns, and efforts to shape the global technology supply chain in each nation's favor.

In telecommunications specifically, US-China competition reached an inflection point with the exclusion of Huawei from US networks and the subsequent global campaign to remove Chinese equipment from allied nations' telecommunications infrastructure. The 2018 NDAA prohibited US government procurement of Huawei and ZTE equipment; the FCC barred use of Universal Service Fund dollars for Chinese telecommunications equipment; and the "rip and replace" program funded removal of Chinese equipment already embedded in US rural networks. The academic literature characterizes the exclusion of Huawei from US telecommunications infrastructure as "the onset of hypercompetition" between the two powers in the technology domain.

The competition has expanded dramatically beyond equipment procurement into infrastructure finance and deployment. China's Digital Silk Road—channeled through state-backed entities including HMN Technologies—is actively building subsea cables, 5G networks, and data center infrastructure across the Global South, seeking to position Chinese-built networks as the default digital infrastructure for developing economies. China's goal of capturing 60% of the global subsea cable market by 2025 directly threatens the US-led architecture of global internet infrastructure. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum warns that a "digital iron curtain" separating US-led and China-led tech spheres could fragment global internet infrastructure into incompatible systems—a scenario that would impose severe economic costs and deepen strategic vulnerabilities for nations positioned between the two blocs. BEAD's supply chain security requirements are a direct domestic policy response to this competition.