Both the recent Quad Summit and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden focused heavily on technological collaboration.
Both countries agreed to resurrect the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group in early 2022 in order to accelerate high-tech commerce. However, the Quad discussions yielded more concrete results. Participants also agreed to build on the work of the working group established at Quad’s virtual summit in March to establish technology principles and standards, as well as an agreement among participating countries to continue the group’s work.
One of the group’s main goals is to make it easier for emerging technologies such as biotechnology, semiconductors, and future communication technology to develop standards and collaborate. A major goal is to develop resilient technological supply chains. Bilateral and quadrilateral discussions focused on low-emissions technology and cybersecurity solutions.
From afar, these developments appear to be positive for India. Disruptive changes in China, on the other hand, make these objectives difficult to achieve.
The Chinese economy has recently been hit by a series of crises
As a result of crackdowns on the entire platform economy, which includes online commerce, education, and food delivery services, as well as ride-sharing apps, Chinese tech stocks have lost nearly $1.5 trillion. Many of China’s problems are the result of its own actions.
Previously, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) actions were viewed as reckless attempts to ensure that no new tech titans ever reached a size or scale that could threaten the CCP’s ironclad grip on power. However, China’s recent irrationality may have a logical basis. Despite the government’s increased support for hard and manufacturing sectors like 5 G/6 G, semiconductors, and batteries, the crackdown has only been applied to consumer technology.
We can expect a number of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) like ZTE, as well as state-supported and -controlled tech giants like Huawei, to emerge from the reorganised Chinese tech landscape, with an emphasis on strategic core technology. They’d make an effort to sway global markets. As a preview of what’s to come, China’s tech titans pushed their 5G products onto global markets. One group saw Chinese technology as a threat to national security, while the other saw it as a development opportunity. It was either that or choose a more expensive but less effective alternative while they caught up. As a result, India’s launch was postponed, and opportunity costs were incurred. However, as a result of this, several carriers are now said to be on track to develop indigenous technology in accordance with our rescheduled launch date.
The Quad’s success in high-tech collaboration is dependent on the four countries’ ability to leverage each other’s strengths and identify collaborations that increase domestic and global market appetite. If they are to compete with China’s single-minded, state-directed rivalry, they must respond quickly. Democracies will be crippled if they fall behind in these strategic emerging technologies that will power our future digitally driven economies.
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