a/symmetric: Decoding China’s industrial system
August 24, 2024On big picture context and frameworks, and finding signals from noise
a/symmetric: How China innovates
May 11, 2024It prioritizes industrializing technology, transforming scale into market power.
a/symmetric: China bets on industrial AI
April 27, 2024Doing so sidesteps its US tech dependence and amplifies its manufacturing might
a/symmetric: How Apple boosted China’s manufacturing base
March 9, 2024The iPhone maker has long relied on Chinese suppliers, in turn helping them upgrade their technological capabilities. Now those suppliers are helping domestic brands like Huawei and Xiaomi chip away at Apple’s market share.
a/symmetric: China is exporting its entire EV industrial chain
March 1, 2024Car exports are a function of a larger strategic goal: “whole industrial chain output," which can in turn be leveraged to win influence over technology standards, trade flows, business models, and global commerce writ large.
a/symmetric: What critical technologies lists can and can’t tell us
February 17, 2024Critical technologies lists only tell part of the story. They don’t reflect the full scope of the global industrial competition, including low(er)-tech know-how, upstream inputs, market applications that bring sales and profits.
a/symmetric: The “latest front” in the US-China competition?
January 20, 2024The global industrial contest is being waged between supply chains, not discrete technologies.
a/symmetric: “Deplorable dependence”—and an industrial base to fix it
January 14, 2024On the heels of the Pentagon's publication of its first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy, a look at a prescient 1920 analysis by a US Naval officer that lessons for today's efforts to fortify the US defense industrial base
a/symmetric: De-risking with Chinese characteristics
January 6, 2024How China has long deployed an asymmetric industrial strategy that it now purports to denounce
The US national innovation base has critical weaknesses. Just look at Starlink.
September 1, 2023To compete with China, the US needs a robust industrial and innovation base, able to withstand attacks on the battlefield and the factory floor. Real American dynamism – and real competitive advantage – stem from credible and sustainable power. Starlink's, and more broadly Elon Musk's, dependence on China underscore the vulnerabilities in current US national defense strategy.
Getting in the Semiconductor Fight
July 2, 2022A global semiconductor strategy, if it could be established, might set the template for how the techno-democracies can compete in today’s industrial era. Emerging industries cannot be pursued by a go-it-alone America. But nor can any be developed without guardrails and a competitive orientation. Welcome to the new globalization.
