Thread by @70sBachchan

National Security Council for AI (chaired by Google's Schmidt) issues 750-pg report proposing “US & its allies should utilize targeted export controls on high-end semiconductor manufa equipmen...to protect existing technical advantages & slow [China]" reports.nscai.gov/final-report/t…

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1366836934623059970

2/ Ex Google CEO Schmidt made it plain in 2010s that he intends to marry Silicon Valley giants to the Pentagon. His pitch: thanks for starting Computers in 1940s but your software & weapons are stuck in 1980s
Military Industrial complex contracts,ka-ching! nytimes.com/2020/05/02/tec…

3/ And to Silicon Valley, Google's Schmidt has made the pitch that the digital world is decoupling (and China will never let you into the walled garden, trust us, we tried & failed) and you have to turn into patriotic National Giants to help contain China nytimes.com/2020/02/27/opi…

4/ On the China Question, a notable gap has opened up between the 2 highly profitable power centers in the US: Silicon Valley & Wall Street.

Wall Street sees money to be made in China (& on behalf of Western MNC's ~ 5 trillion dollars of FDI into China)

https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1317198264152825857

5/ But Power in the US pol economy has transitioned from Government Sachs to Govt Google. With Silicon Valley's marriage w Pentagon, is decoupling from China more likely? An "extraordinary report on the love affair between Google & Obama" ht @policytensor thenewatlantis.com/publications/g…

5/ US political economy was bipolar: Wall Street & Silicon Valley. But laws of uneven & combined development provincialized even Wall St as Valley's tech firms became Trillion dollar colossus.

US is now Unipolar in secret Harris Presidency (formerly senator from the Valley)

6/ Unlike US, China is going after AI Tech Giants. Top tech stocks have lost $250bn in market cap since regulators decided to curb their monopoly power. “This is just a way of Beijing saying to all the big companies: ‘You have to play ball by our rules.'" ft.com/content/251534…

7/Will China regret spurning Google (kicked out of Firewall in 2010)? Instead of Silicon Valley, China sweetened the pot for Wall Street to counterbalance Trump hostility. Financial opening —what Wall St hungered for decades — irresistible despite Pentagon wsj.com/articles/china…

8/ Technology developed by worlds' brainiest ppl has been motor of US domination. "Schmidt is preaching to the choir/helping out the Dems. Congress is already on track to pour 10s of billions into high tech R&D, much of it ear-marked for AI, 5G & biotech"

https://twitter.com/policytensor/status/1366986934426296321

9/ Famous 1927 Solvay conference had just 2 Americans. 10 yrs later, Europe went fascist, & scientific research frontier moved to US. If US turns away students & researchers, its loss will be others gain. The 5G,AI,Biotech, Greentech etc won't build itself

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1304141104292532224

10/ The world’s 2 largest economies are now the main combatants in the patent war for new technologies.

Can US maintain its technological edge w its Open Society & more R&D? Or is China's knowhow (hence 21stC growth) now endogenous & near escape velocity?vdata.nikkei.com/en/newsgraphic…

11/ Pentagon's logic of US-China decoupling:
(1) technology drives economic growth & military power
(2) China cannot innovate without copying or stealing IP from West
Therefore,forcing firms to decouple arrests China's rise. It's (2) that's false. China's know-how now endogenous

12/US has declared economic war on China w Tech sanctions."Chinese regime should not expect the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to be welcome anywhere in the West. It should not expect its security organizations to be able to do biz..."
@adam_tooze ip-quarterly.com/en/fragility-e…