US-China tech war: rivals no longer worlds apart as they shoot for the moon

Name: Chang'e 5 returning to China with lunar rock samples
Uploaded: 2020-12-17T15:00:13.000Z
Duration: 2 min 12 s
Description: Chang'e 5 returning to China with lunar rock samples

America’s research ecosystem gives it an edge, but those familiar with both countries say it is no longer accurate to bill the rivalry as market vs state

China’s growing R&D spend is increasingly market-driven as it seeks to incentivise the innovation it craves

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Holly Chik

Published: 11:00pm, 17 Dec 2020Updated: 4:18am, 18 Dec 2020

Launching missions to the moon and Mars, diving to the depths of the oceans and racing to develop Covid-19 vaccines, China and the United States are competing on almost every frontier of research and technology on Earth and beyond.

Chinese spacecraft Chang’e 5 this week brought home rock samples from its lunar mission. In 2024, a Blue Origin spaceship may send the first woman to the moon. While the Chang’e 5 craft is owned by the Chinese government, Blue Origin is a rocket venture owned by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos.

“Our market-oriented approach will allow us to prevail against state-directed models that produce waste and disincentivise innovation,” read a White House document in October that unveiled a national strategy to maintain the United States’ global leadership in 20 technological areas, including artificial intelligence (AI), space and medical technologies.

Yet the driving forces behind science and technology advancement in the two countries are not defined precisely by the White House’s categorisation.

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Chang'e 5 returning to China with lunar rock samples

Chinese science policy observers say the rivalry between the two nations is not so much a fight between state-directed and market-oriented models as a race to translate science into commercial applications.

“It has always been a misnomer for people to say the US is market-driven and China is government-driven,” said Denis Fred Simon, professor of China business and technology at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in the US.