HKUST Business School Magazine

Biz@HKUST Biz@HKUST 36 37 // Cover // Insight the answer should be “nothing is impossible”, especially when it is a matter of life and death. It is the only reasonable choice, and the two countries should do everything they can to avoid a tragic conflict. They should take the advantage of every possibility to work together. Four years ago, in the first meeting of the two heads of state, the Chinese President told his American counterpart that there are a thousand reasons to make a good bilateral relation, and there is not one reason to make a bad one. Ironically, the SCA and some political elites have listed many reasons for confrontation. These elites always try to pass their anxiety to the public, and too often they succeed. Some business elites are those who have made a fortune from doing business in or with China in recent decades, but who find it is getting harder to make money as China itself becomes better market player and technology innovator. Some political elites are surprised to find that China is no longer as tame and low-profile as it used to be, and appears to be more assertive. Some still wholeheartedly believe that China is an errant lamb who needs to be brought back to the right path. But they are frustrated to find that China is growing more and more confident and self-assured. Such elites believe that China needs to be corrected. These elites, regardless their beliefs, illusions, or frustrations, have little to do with the daily lives of the mass public. For decades, they collectively have failed the American public and now they tell the public that it is all China’s fault. Too many still choose to believe them. That is why we now see a clamoring in the political arena for the so-called strategic competition. Wisdom and responsibility Competition itself is not a bad thing at all. Business school students are familiar with their required reading, the Competitive Advantage of Nations, by the Harvard Professor Michael PORTER. Porter revised the classical Comparative Advantage theory by emphasizing competition among nations. According to Porter, each nation could enhance its competitive advantage through engaging in a global system of value chains and trade based on production factors, investment and innovation. In such a system, nations are interdependent of, and benefit from, each other. This has been working well for the US and China in recent decades. Both countries and the world have gained tremendously from the globalized, interdependent system. But now, this system is facing a rapid shift and deterioration, towards competition for dominating advantage. My former colleague Ryan HASS, of the Brookings Institution, recently published a new book that immediately became a bestseller: Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence. Indeed, we are not just living in an era of strategic competition, we are in an age of interdependence. Cooperation, competition or confrontation? Our choice matters for present and future generations. Be wise and be responsible. Reference Graham Allison (2019), Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?. Michael E. Porter 1998), Competitive Advantage of Nations. Ryan Hass (2021), Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence China seems to be confident, and determined to have a breakthrough in bottle-neck technologies by means of indigenous innovation