http://www.bjreview.com MARCH 26, 2020 BEIJING REVIEW 27NATION
Given the proliferation of technology today,
many can Tuickly grasp how it has reshaped hu-
man life for better and worse. Many around the
world today Tuestion, for example, whether our
smart devices serve us or vice versa, and the
extent to which we are puppets of artiĶ cial intel-
ligence (AI), big data, social media and platform
companies, all of which contribute to “inescap-
able surveillance capitalism, the impossibility of
data privacy, the normalization of stealth mass-
manipulation and nudging campaigns, the
experience of post-truth rationalities, and the
reduction of individuals to constantly accessible
screen-brain interfacing,” to Tuote a recent
article I published with Maximilian Mayer, as-sistant professor in international studies at the
University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.
And above all, many believe today’s
younger generations above all have been trans-
formed, producing both generation gaps and
new forms of alienation as well as exciting new
breakthroughs in science and computing that
convey, frankly, beneĶ ts for everyone.
The key point here, however, is not to de-
bate the pros and cons of these changes, but
rather to note that since the founding of the
People’s Republic of China in 1949 and to some
extent since the May Fourth Movement in 1919,
popularly known as the start of modern Chinese
history, China has rapidly transformed from anCopyedited by Madhusudan Chaubey
Comments to yanwei#bjreview.comadvanced technical society into an advanced
technological society, and indeed, increasingly
occupies a leading position globally in an era
when doing so is not only inescapably vital for
independence and security, but also a key driver
of a global technological culture sometimes at
odds with traditional national values, as well as a
producer of other forms of insecurity if not fear.Going against logic
The fear that technology will erode traditional
values and transform younger generations
particularly is nothing new, and neither is the
fear China would eventually learn from Western
science and technology and surpass the West.
Even the German polymath and Sinophile
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had these worries
in the early 18th century, as did Heidegger
toward Asia generally in the mid-19th century.
ConseTuently, it should be unsurprising that
many in the U.S. today are unnerved by China’s
rise and contest it whenever possible.
The problem with doing so, however, is
threefold. First, it runs against the very logic
that the West foisted on the world by establish-
ing the technological society as the basis for
international competition and which continues
to drive Western thought and development. In
a word, therefore, to argue against one’s own
normalizations is irrational.
Second, it risks a deepening and mutu-
ally destructive conflict. Some believe this
has already appeared in the growing calls for
“decoupling,” but plausible, worst-case sce-
narios that may follow can be found in the
post-human landscapes described recently by
Jairus Victor Grove in Savage Ecology: War and
Geopolitics at the End of the World (2019). In
fact, the problem isn’t simply that the worst-
case scenarios of harming each other might
emerge, although indeed they might. Rather,
a more immediate concern is that the world
today reTuires more integration and working
with each other in order to address problems
like climate change, global economic recession,
and the current global pandemic of COVID-19.
Third, despite the social and cultural costs
associated with technology and the rise of
technological society, and despite the need to
better control these developments in ways that
preserve humanity, to suppress others’ tech-
nological development while advancing one’s
own is both hypocritical and unjust, and will only
produce more harm than good.
China’s emergence as a leading technologi-
cal society is irreversible at this point, and the
sooner this fact is absorbed intelligently, without
Sino(techno)phobia and bellicosity, and instead
with moves toward responsible exchange and
partnership, the better. QChinese technology giant Huawei opens its Ķ rst ß agship store in France in the center of Paris on March 5
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AA resident scans a QR code for health condition screening before entering a grocery in Zhengzhou, Henan Province
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