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On March 9, 2021, Oxford’s Saïd Business School presented their Leadership in Extraordinary Times seminar, The Great Decoupling? The future of relations between China and the West. It was hosted by Eric Thun, Professor Saïd Business School, Oxford, and Marc Szepan, Lecturer Saïd Business School, Oxford.
Guest participants were: Rebecca Arcesati, Mercator Institute for China Studies, Berlin; Stephan Scheuer, Technology Team Lead, Handelsblatt, Düsseldorf; Adam Segal, Ira A. Lipman Chair in Emerging Technologies and National Security and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations; Xudong Gao, Professor School of Economics & Management, Tsinghua University.
Unfettered Globalism has given way to a greater decoupling. How did this come about?
Adam: First, in America, there was increasing, bipartisan skepticism about benefits for America and concern about vulnerabilities of US and the concession of advantages to China. Historically, America dominated the “technology stack” (e.g., the Internet); but fears emerged about loss of American technology preeminence, whose outsized benefits would flow to China instead of the US. Second, an increased dependence on private sector technology for national…