The Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance (GTG) examines how emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and smart devices—are redefining power, economies, and policies worldwide. Our research addresses the complex challenges these advances pose for international security, and how governments, businesses, and individuals adapt to shifting landscapes of risk and opportunity.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping economies, security, and governance worldwide, raising urgent questions about how to distribute its benefits equitably while managing risks. GTG examines how democracies can leverage AI innovation to advance shared prosperity and security, with particular attention to infrastructure requirements, Global South perspectives, and mechanisms for international cooperation.
Related projects:
AI for Peace
This research initiative investigates how the United States and its allies and partners can leverage their comparative advantages in AI innovation to equitably distribute the benefits of AI while incentivizing trustworthy deployment. The research focuses on three key areas:
Infrastructural requirements for deploying AI at scale for countries at all levels of economic development and multilateral, multi-stakeholder mechanisms for meeting those requirements.
Global South perspectives on promising use cases for AI and governance approaches for facilitating AI deployment while managing risks.
Prospects and options for international collaborations to address cross-border security, environmental, and other externalities.
The Future of Decision-Making Project (FODM) is a multi-year, interdisciplinary research initiative examining how emerging technologies—particularly artificial intelligence and advanced decision-support systems—are reshaping human decision-making in high-stakes domains such as national security, defense, and crisis management. Rather than focusing solely on technological capability, the project centers on the human dimension: how judgment, responsibility, and accountability evolve as machines increasingly inform, shape, or constrain human choices. The project brings together scholars and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to develop empirically grounded, policy-relevant insights into the future of human-machine decision systems.
GEOPOLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY
Emerging technologies are becoming central to great power competition and regional security dynamics. GTG examines how technological advantages translate into geopolitical leverage, how U.S. strategy can balance competition with innovation and alliance partnerships, and how technology is reshaping power dynamics across critical regions like East Asia.
GTG's annual conference and ongoing research initiative brings together leading regional experts, policymakers, and industry leaders to examine how technological developments are reshaping geopolitical dynamics across East Asia. The research focuses on critical technology supply chains—particularly semiconductors—regional responses to U.S.-China competition, and opportunities for multilateral cooperation on technology governance.
CHINA & DIGITAL COMPETITION
China's rapid digital development and distinct governance approaches have profound implications for global markets, security, and technology standards. GTG analyzes Chinese technology policy and corporate strategies through original-language sources, providing insights into how China's digital trajectory shapes international competition and governance debates.
The DigiChina project, led by Graham Webster, enhances understanding of China's digital policy developments through translating and analyzing Chinese-language sources. Since 2017, DigiChina has published translations of primary sources, contextual explanation, and analysis on China’s technology policy landscape, covering topics including the Cybersecurity Law regime, data governance, artificial intelligence, and China’s official push for greater technological independence.
CYBERSECURITY & INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Effective governance of technology challenges requires sustained dialogue and cooperation across borders. GTG facilitates Track II exchanges with international partners, building relationships and shared understanding that can lay groundwork for broader policy cooperation on cybersecurity and technology governance issues.
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Regional monopoly limits market reforms from improving cross-firm resource allocative efficiency, but little empirical evidence is available from developing countries. This paper provides rich evidence that regional monopoly may hinder the expansion of more productive firms, using the Chinese iron and steel sector as a case. Drawing on a comprehensive panel dataset comprising 11,136 iron and steel firms in China from 1998 to 2009, we demonstrate that market reforms in China's steel industry enhance competition at the national level, but do not effectively improve resource reallocation within provinces. Despite a decline in the market share of the top 10 largest steel enterprises from 80% to 50% between 1998 and 2009, resource reallocation only contributes to 14% of industry-level total factor productivity (TFP) growth, amounting to one-sixth of the contribution from within-firm productivity growth. Furthermore, the effects of resource reallocation within provinces are significantly lower compared to those observed between provinces, suggesting that market fragmentation or frictions hinder the expansion of more productive firms within the same province. These findings underscore the importance of eliminating regional monopoly for developing countries undergoing market reforms to enhance resource allocative efficiency.
Breastfeeding self-efficacy (BSE), defined as a mother’s confidence in her ability to breastfeed, has been confirmed to predict the uptake of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF). Early experiences during the birth hospital stay, especially in-hospital formula feeding (IHFF), can impact both EBF and maternal breastfeeding confidence. Therefore, our objective was to examine the association between IHFF and EBF outcomes and investigate whether this association is influenced by BSE. The study included 778 infants from a larger cohort study conducted in 2021, with a one-year follow-up in rural areas of Sichuan Province, China. We used a causal mediation analysis to estimate the total effect (TE), natural direct (NDE), and nature indirect effects (NIE) using the paramed command in Stata. Causal mediation analyses revealed that IHFF was negatively associated with EBF (TE odds ratio = 0.47; 95% CI, 0.29 to 0.76); 28% of this association was mediated by BSE. In the subgroup analysis, there were no significant differences in the effects between parity subgroups, as well as between infant delivery subgroups. Our study found that IHFF hindered later EBF and that BSE mediated this association. Limiting the occurrence of in-hospital formula feeding or improving maternal breastfeeding self-efficacy is likely to improve exclusive breastfeeding outcomes.
Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness,
December 7, 2023
The objective of the current study is to examine the impact of an in-school computer-assisted learning (CAL) intervention on the math achievement of rural students in Taiwan, including a marginalized subgroup of rural students called Xinzhumin, and the factors associated with this impact. In order to achieve this, we conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 1,840 fourth- and fifth-grade students at 95 schools in four relatively poor counties and municipalities of Taiwan during the spring semester of 2019. While the Intention-To-Treat (ITT) analysis found that the CAL intervention had no significant impacts on student math achievement, the Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) analysis revealed significant associations with the math performance of the most active 20% of students in the treatment group. LATE estimates suggest that using CAL for more than 20 minutes per week for ten weeks corresponds to higher math test scores, both in general (0.16 SD–0.22 SD), and for Xinzhumin students specifically (0.3 SD–0.34 SD). Teacher-level characteristics were associated with compliance rates.
Objective To investigate factors that differentiate elderly adults in rural China who accept free vision screening and cataract surgery from those who could benefit from vision care but refuse it when offered.
Design We conducted a population-based, cross-sectional study between October and December 2016. Logistic regression models were used to examine the predictors of accepting free vision screening and cataract surgery.
Setting Rural communities in Handan, China.
Participants Adults aged 50 years or older, with presenting visual acuity ≤6/18 in the better seeing eye, suspected by examining ophthalmologist to be due to cataract.
Results Among 613 persons with cataract identified on a population basis, 596 (97.2%) completed the household survey (mean (SD) age, 71.5 (10.0) years; 79.8% female). A total of 214 persons (35.9%) refused participation, while 382 (64.1%) took part in the vision screening. A total of 193 (50.5%) participants were found eligible for surgery, while 189 (49.5%) were not. Among 99 randomly selected participants who were offered immediate free surgery, surgery was accepted by 77 participants (77.8%) and refused by 22 (22.2%). In the multivariate model, being engaged in income-generating activities (p<0.01), self-reported better physical capacity (p<0.001) and having had a recent physical examination (p=0.01) were significantly associated with acceptance of vision screening. The only variable significantly associated with acceptance of surgery was presenting visual acuity, with better vision inversely associated with acceptance of surgery (p<0.05) models.
Conclusion Our results suggest that refusal of basic eye examinations may be at least as important a determinant of low surgical rates in rural China as lack of acceptance of surgery itself.
At SCCEI, we aim to shed some light on what actually is happening in China, and exactly how these happenings might affect the rest of the world. This year has been one of unprecedented growth for SCCEI, take a look at our 2022-23 Annual Report to see all of the incredible work and accomplishments we have achieved together. Download your copy or read it online.
In low- and middle-income countries, urbanization has spurred the expansion of peri-urban communities, or urban communities of formerly rural residents with low socioeconomic status. The growth of these communities offers researchers an opportunity to measure the associations between the level of urbanization and the home language environment (HLE) among otherwise similar populations. Data were collected in 2019 using Language Environment Analysis observational assessment technology from 158 peri-urban and rural households with Han Chinese children (92 males, 66 females) aged 18–24 months in China. Peri-urban children scored lower than rural children in measures of the HLE and language development. In both samples, child age, gender, maternal employment, and sibling number were positively correlated with the HLE, which was in turn correlated with language development.
As the U.S., EU and China are taking divergent leads in new AI regulations, a new framework for AI diplomacy is emerging, all under the shadow of strategic technological competition.
Despite private enterprises dominating China's labour market, college-educated workers are still highly concentrated in the state sector. Using data from the Chinese College Student Survey, we find that 64 per cent of students in the sample expressed a strong preference for state sector employment. We also identify several factors associated with receiving job offers from the state sector, including being male, holding urban hukou status, being a member of the CCP, performing well on standardized tests, attending elite universities and having higher household income or high-status parental backgrounds. These findings suggest that despite China's economic transition, the private sector may still struggle to attract highly educated workers.
