Harun Šiljak (TCD) -- China’s Development Model: Economy, Technology, and Global Interdependence

Duration: 10:58 1378 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Harun Šiljak, an assistant professor at Trinity College specializing in quantum technologies, approaches China's development model through the lens of engineering and global technological interdependence. He highlights how China's strategic focus on quantum communications was significantly accelerated by the Edward Snowden leaks, which revealed extensive NSA surveillance capabilities. Rather than viewing these revelations as a shock, Chinese leadership treated them as common knowledge that necessitated immediate action to protect national secrets. This pragmatic response led to the inclusion of quantum cryptography in the 13th Five-Year Plan under President Xi Jinping and culminated in the launch of the world's first quantum communication satellite in 2016, positioning China as a leader in this emerging field where opportunity and crisis are viewed as two sides of the same coin. A central theme in Šiljak's analysis is the concept of "ecological civilization," which prioritizes environmental sustainability alongside economic growth, famously summarized by the choice between "mountains of gold" and "mountains of green and blue." While this policy might seem like common sense to Western observers, Šiljak argues that it represents a unique alignment in China where individual survival and prosperity are directly identified with the state's interests. This eliminates the need for the complex negotiation often required in other economies to translate personal goals into market demands and then into state policies. Consequently, anti-corruption drives and state interventions are not seen as bizarre external impositions but as logical steps to ensure that development serves the collective well-being of over a billion people, bypassing the friction between private interest and public good found in free-market critiques. Critics from outside China, such as those at the Lowy Institute, often judge Chinese policies using metrics designed for Western economies, leading to what Šiljak calls "China failure theories." He argues that applying limited input-output models or export-import ratios to China's economy is like measuring a three-dimensional object with a one-dimensional ruler; it inevitably distorts reality and misses the actual mechanisms at play. The Chinese model cannot be accurately understood through the same metrics used for American, British, or Irish economies because its internal logic and priorities differ fundamentally. Attempting to force China into these external frameworks results in a low-dimensional projection that fails to capture the full scope of its technological and social ambitions. Ultimately, Šiljak advocates for a realist and materialist perspective when evaluating China's technological trajectory, urging observers to move beyond hurling critiques from the sidelines without power or context. He emphasizes that as the world's largest developing nation with the second-largest economy, China must make monumental decisions regarding its future direction, and these choices should be understood on their own terms rather than through a lens of external judgment. By recognizing the distinct ways in which China integrates technology, policy, and societal goals, we can better understand how it navigates global interdependence while pursuing its own path of innovation and sustainable development. This approach requires acknowledging that different nations operate under different constraints and priorities, and that true understanding comes from engaging with the substance of their actions rather than dismissing them based on incompatible measurement standards.

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Hi everyone. My name is Harun Šiljak. I am an assistant professor here in Trinity College in the Department of Electronic Engineering. And my own engagement with contemporary China is very much again from that perspective of engineering. It comes into the contact of, okay, how is technology actually being developed right now internationally and what is China's role in it? And again, my my particular expertise would fall within the area of quantum technologies, of quantum communications and computing. And there I always find this a curious way to start a conversation. Um when uh in 2000 and this is where notes should come in. Uh so, in the 13th 5-year plan uh Xi Jinping pretty much had a vision of quantum communications as an important uh as an important asset for research and a goal to launch a quantum satellite to get to get things going in terms of quantum cryptography, which again, to give you a bit of context, would be the next generation cryptography that would be more difficult to break, etc. Now, let me contextualize that a bit further. In 2019, uh there's a lovely white paper from the European Commission where they say, "Oh, yeah, quantum communications, great technology because it allows European countries to protect their secrets." Oh, yeah, quantum cryptography, yeah, bad technology because it allows other people to keep their secrets, too. And uh so let's look at the genesis of uh quantum uh communications uh of that little point of quantum communications in the 13th five-year plan. That was Ed Snowden's uh leaks. So when Edward Snowden went to the press with with his files, that uh it is acknowledged by by CPC uh in in advance of the 13th plan that that is why this is being developed right now. Now, let's be frank and honest. It's not that uh anyone in CPC found out something particularly revolutionary and new uh in in the Snowden files. Those things have uh would have necessarily been on the map uh within the within the security community for for years. And at least there would have been expectations of uh the revelations that were in the Snowden files. However, what I always find interesting there is this notion of common knowledge. Because now uh you have uh this level playing ground of information in a way. Not only do you know uh what the NSA is doing, but rather everyone else also knows what the NSA is doing. So your developments in in this direction uh become contextualized in this uh opportunity of sorts. And again, it's uh uh I think Norma Foale had uh a comment a couple of years back when when she was trying to to make a point about something and says, "Oh yeah, in Chinese opportunity and crisis is the same words." Uh now, not going into particularities of uh Foale's argument there, uh this opportunity to do development in a space that is uh taking up uh a leadership position in uh in quantum technologies was quickly seized and it led to 2016 launch of the world's first known quantum communication satellites and advances in quantum communications uh in China since. So, that was sort of my entry point into the story of uh Chinese technological development and uh how it uh how it functions within the wider context of uh of the global science system uh if you if you want to call it that way. But, uh my next point, which is somewhat separate uh on the surface of it, but uh not really, was uh reading into the concept of ecological civilization. So, uh the the idea that uh the uh policy documents uh in China in the last uh 10 to 15 years refer to the to the idea that uh between if we have to choose between mountains and gold and mountains of green and blue, we will choose the mountains of uh green and blue, but we want both if possible. Uh that idea as a uh as a summary of uh of a policy felt rather weird to me the first time I read it because it feels so common sensical, you know, way. Yes, of course, you can't ruin uh your house while trying to make something in it, but uh ideally you would be preserving the state of the house while actually being able to make something uh as well. And uh when I when I looked uh a bit deeper into my own issue with just how obvious that felt, I realized that uh there is a sense of difference in in policy in technology policy making in China compared to to other parts of the world that it's somewhat easier to identify your own personal interest. And here by personal, I mean a very common-sensical interest of survival and prosperity for for people to identify that with the state's interest. Because oftentimes you need to negotiate that in terms of our own policies. You need to translate what your interest is into what the interest of the market is and then into what the interest of the state's coexisting with that market is. Whereas here, there was, at least for me in that particular moment of reading up on technological civilization, there was a skip of that one step. That I could recognize my own my own goals and interests in what was written there. And I find that rather interesting in uh a lot of uh critical literature on contemporary China. And here by critical, I mean rather uh uh critique coming from from free market perspective. And uh a friend uh told me to read a book on my train journey uh this weekend, and that was that was a choice. It was Richard McGregor's uh book on Xi Jinping. And uh there, most of the critique that that I ended up reading, which comes from Lowy Institute in Australia, would be this, that's the that the market doesn't recognize itself in the policy, and that somehow the the anti-corruption action and the the interventions in in the interest of the people come as as a bizarre way to do things. And the the measuring stick in which again policy decisions gets gets measured uh is brought from the outside. And arguably and His Excellency actually mentioned that earlier, you can't measure Chinese economy or the world economy in a limited set of metrics of your of your inputs and outputs and of your of your exports and imports because then you are very much uh going to argue, which again comes to another point he made earlier, of the of the China breakdown, China failure theories, that China as such shouldn't exist under the metrics that are that are being imposed here as the as the economic and technological development metrics. Because again, if you if you try to measure an economy like like Chinese one with the with the same meter that that measures an economy like like the American one or the British one or for that purpose the Irish one, you end up in a in a projection that that is bound in in a in a low-dimensional space, uh you want to call it that way, which necessarily limits the the actual mechanisms at play there. So, that is uh the That is the lens through which I try to look at technology in in China and the developments of the developments of its policy. And what I would like to finish with is this necessary recognition that I find as someone who thinks that he has a critical perspective on technology, this position of uh realism, of of a materialist perspective on, "Okay, what do you actually do when you have some degrees of freedom to take a technology policy and technology development in a certain direction?" Because critiquing from the outside and critiquing from a position of no power in in a lot of critical technology studies comes from the perspective of hurling on the ditch. But, if you actually have a billion plus people and second largest economy in the world and the world's largest developing country, you need to make big decisions.