Power Dynamics: Technological Fragmentation in U.S.-China Rivalry

Abstract

The intensifying technological rivalry between the U.S. and China has become one of the central arenas through which contemporary power politics is being reorganized. In the existing literature, this rivalry is often viewed either as a broad contest for technological supremacy or as an early stage of full decoupling. However, this paper advances a more specific claim: the rivalry is producing selective, security-driven fragmentation of technological ecosystems rather than either imminent war or complete technological separation. The argument is developed through a qualitative structured comparison of three issue areas: advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and technical standardization. The selected cases link technological capability to national security, market power, institutional rule-making, and the distribution of international influence. The paper examines Power Transition Theory (PTT) by showing that sector-specific technological leadership cannot be mechanically translated into aggregate national power parity. China’s advances in selected technological domains increase U.S. threat perceptions and intensify the politics of restriction, but they do not by themselves establish the comprehensive parity that PTT identifies as especially dangerous. At the same time, U.S. controls on semiconductors, outbound investment, and sensitive technologies do not amount to full decoupling because both economies remain embedded in dense networks of trade, production, talent, standards, and capital. Therefore, the paper identifies a middle condition: strategic fragmentation. This condition combines continued interdependence in less sensitive areas with tighter controls in domains viewed as militarily, infrastructurally, or politically consequential. The contribution of the paper is to specify the mechanisms through which technology competition reshapes power dynamics, such as weaponized interdependence, alliance coordination, standards competition, and the conversion of technological asymmetries into political leverage. The paper concludes that a contested and uneven order in which states preserve interdependence where it is profitable while fragmenting systems where vulnerability is regarded as strategically unacceptable.