| Summary/Abstract |
The technological war, or Tech War, as part of the geopolitical conflict
between the United States and China raises a range of questions for
researchers, the most important one being the role of digital technologies
and markets in international relations and world politics. The article studies
the motives and objectives of the Tech War and its long-term effects using
available academic literature on sanctions and research data on the digital
economy and high-tech markets, including the political aspects of the
U.S.-China rivalry. Analogues from the Cold War and other conflicts suggest
that the economic purpose of the Tech War is to limit China’s capacity in the long term. However, the new realities transform both the instruments
and goals of the traditional superpowers’ economic withstanding. The
importance of information and communication technologies (ICT) and the
rise of the digital economy have made traditional geopolitical and market
(commercial) dimensions of the conflict intertwined with high technology
seen as a strategic resource and a separate area of conflict. As for the
role of digital technology in world politics, a reverse process is observed:
its importance is growing due to the traditional (geo)political factors,
including securitization of the digital sphere, enhanced by the narratives of
new technological revolutions. These factors increase the intensity of the
Tech War since competition in high-tech markets is perceived as a zero-sum
game. However, in the long term, the globalized, highly internationalized
nature of digital markets and technologies may lead to the normalization
of global processes and world politics.
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