Industrial policy, techno-nationalism and Industry 4.0: China-USA technology war

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the evolution of the technology war between China and the USA in a context of exacerbation of techno-nationalist strategies for industrial and technological development. This analysis refers mainly to the Chinese strategy to deploy Industry 4.0 and the implications derived from US imposed restrictions on Chinese efforts to develop indigenous technologies that are central in the forthcoming paradigm. The hypothesis is that such policies, by boosting Industry 4.0, aim to create a new techno-economic paradigm and thus reconfigure the bases of inter-capitalist and interstate competition. The main contribution to the literature is providing an analysis of the implications of the technology war between China and the USA in different layers of the Industry 4.0 techno-economic paradigm, in addition to the mainstream debate about the transition to 5G communication networks.