In Suga, An Opportunity for Tech Cooperation

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As the newly inaugurated Biden Administration ramps up its foreign policy in the coming months, it will need to deal with the new geopolitical competition of the 21st century, the growing US-China tech showdown — and a Japan led by Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide could serve as an important partner.

The stakes of the growing US-China competition in technology are high. The opening salvos of the battle for tech supremacy have thus far been in established hardware, like semiconductors and 5G networks, and software platforms like TikTok, areas where Western powers have a research and first-mover advantage, and where international rules, norms, and supply chains constrain China’s actions. But as the race moves toward developing technologies like artificial intelligence and smart-city systems, where the existing regulations are few and the interested buyers are many, these advantages will diminish, giving China the possibility to build a level of long-term global strategic influence previously not possible. Western powers will need to decide how to respond to this challenge, and many potential ideas have been put forward, including the UK’s mooted “D10” group of democracies. However, a more immediate opportunity presents itself in the form of Japan’s Suga Administration.