Is China Gaining Ground in Technology Diffusion? A Conversation with Jeffrey Ding

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, I chat with Jeffrey Ding, author of Technology and the Rise of Great Powers, a book that argues that a nation's ability to invent foundational technologies matters ultimately less in its overall national power than its ability to diffuse those "general purpose technologies," like electricity, digital technology, the internet, and — in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution — Artificial Intelligence. I ask Jeff whether he thinks that China, with its powerful tech companies and its new enthusiasm for open source, may at last be closing what his book identifies as a diffusion deficit.

2:19 – Jeff’s argument for the power of diffusion in technological leadership

6:07 – China’s diffusion deficit

12:09 – Institutional factors that affect technology diffusion, and how culture can also play a role

19:49 – China’s successes in (non-GPT) diffusion

24:29 – China’s open source push

29:55 – Discussing He Pengyu’s piece on semiconductors

32:19 – How Jeff might tweak his chapter on China in a second edition of Technology and the Rise of Great Powers

Paying It Forward: Matt Sheehan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Recommendations:

Jeff: The TV series The Pitt (2025 - ); and James Islington’s The Will of the Many

Kaiser: The album Perpetual Change by Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks; and Steven Wilson’s new album, The Overview

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Transcript

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