 Well good morning everyone, we might kick off for this concurrent breakout session at the Crawford Leadership Forum. Somewhat excitingly and provocatively titled Tech Wars is technological globalism dead. I'd like to start off as we always do at the Australia National University by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on the land that we are meeting today and I'd like to extend that to the traditional owners across Australia and indeed the world wherever you're tuning in from today. For Canberra where I am that's the none of all people. I'd also like to welcome those members of the media who've joined us today and indeed anyone who wishes to engage on social media. The hashtag to use is hashtag ACL forum and we're looking forward to a robust debate there as well. So without further ado let me welcome the speakers for today's panel. In no particular order they are Tim Watts, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and for Cyber Security. Tao Wang, the Managing Director and Head of Asia Economics with UBS Investment Bank. Heather Evans, the Supply Chain Manager, CDL COVID-19 Rapid Screening Consortium and finally Dr Tobias Fekin, Australia's Ambassador for Cyber Affairs and Critical Technology. I should also say I'm Catherine Manstead, I'm a Senior Fellow in the Practice of National Security here at the Australian National University. So let's dive straight into the panel today. It seems almost as though we could have no more of a topical discussion on such a critical set of issues than one on technology and the way in which that's playing out in geopolitics. For those who were at the Crawford Leadership Forum yesterday, the Australian Treasurer's remarks really bear on this panel as well. He was emphasising the importance of economic resilience and the need for Australia to consider how we go about securing our supply chains and that really builds off into the topic of today's panel which is looking at technology and the way in which it is very much at the front lines of US-China competition, one of the enduring geostrategic realities that Australia has to confront as well and trying to understand just where this is going in the future. Are we heading towards a world of multiple different supply chains, maybe a bifurcated world of supply chains? Are we headed towards a world that is in some level interdependent as it has been to this point? Really, we could think of no better people to weigh in on this debate and also sheet home the implications of all of this for Australia. I thought I might kick off today by first turning to Heather Evans and asking to get a bit of a view from the US. This is shaped up as a US-China frame and we can perhaps deconstruct or unconstruct that as we go through. My first question to you, I suppose Heather, is we know that in the Trump administration the notion of a trade war between China and the US was very much at the forefront of President Trump's agenda and we also know that there was a big step up for the US to start becoming a technological leader once again or shoring itself up as a technological leader often in opposition to China. So my question to you is to what extent is this continuing under the Biden administration and what are some of the key policies we're seeing President Biden's administration putting out there in this space? Thank you for the question. Building on what you said, it is very clear that the Biden administration is continuing and in certain cases amplifying some of the punitive measures that the Trump administration initially put in. There's also a lot of questions that still remain in particular with respect to trade between the US and China which has caused a lot of disruptions in the business community doing their best to plan ahead and work around a number of tariffs that continue to exist on around $360 billion worth of goods between both countries. We've seen on the domestic front a very partisan Congress and Senate has been able to pass bills specific to increasing the domestic capabilities of the United States with respect to technology. So earlier in June the US Innovation and Competition Act was passed a $250 billion investment and there's a lot of look at infrastructure investment right now in the United States and an element of that President Biden and his team are discussing how by shoring up additional infrastructure domestically again it's a way to counteract what's going on in China. Interestingly while campaigning for President Biden did discuss the fact that the Trump administration was not working well with allies with respects to trying to manage the relationships trade-wise with China. And so we have seen with the EU in particular that Biden's team has worked through some trade disputes and played a part in a more aggressive trade deal for between the EU and China. But in general at this point there's a lot of questions that remain about what the main economic Chinese strategy is with the Biden team and currently it's been said that they're doing a complete review of all data and policies prior to announcing anything but there's a lot of anticipation from the business community in particular to try to figure out how they can continue to manage operating within the two largest economies in the world. Exciting times. Can I straw you out on that Heather because it's not just economics it's not just trade right there's a lot of policies in the US coming out about clamping down on the export of kind of multi-use or dual use technology. There's concern about Chinese researchers in US University. There's a whole range of kind of non-economic policy in terms of immigration, data protection, foreign investment etc that's really been amped up of late. Are you seeing I mean so it's one thing to say this is bipartisan. Is this also a cross portfolio kind of initiative are there any would you say there are any holdouts or any areas of at the federal level in a certain portfolio areas which are less on the front foot of this of this process or indeed are there any state governments that maybe aren't as far bought into some of the trends you're describing. Well of course it sort of goes without saying that while it's politically very favorable to be incredibly hawkish towards China again regardless of what side of the aisle you're on the relationship that different regions have with China with respect in particular to trade but in other areas can be really key to their local economies. But another thing that I think is undoubtedly going to come up and should continue to come up on all panels and discussions in today's world are with respect to collaboration for climate change and climate solutions and so I very much look up to the diplomats and the negotiators who are working on trying to find solutions and avoiding the politically challenging or dangerous red lines in their conversations in order to try to reach productive conclusions finding solutions to various things related to climate change. And one additional thing just quickly to add on that I think an area that's under threat which you mentioned that's quite concerning is of course the lack of inner scholastic movement of individuals collaborations at an academic level even just something so small as during the Trump presidency when they blocked Chinese graduate students from coming to the United States and in general doing anything to make it more difficult for students to study at university from a soft power perspective are pretty dangerous. It speaks volumes for a lot of the world's elite wanting to study at universities in the United States and anything to make that more difficult. I think is on the whole quite negative for the United States but in general it's very important for minds from all over the world to be able to gather together to help figuring out the challenges that we face but it can be very easy to to read headlines and get an impression that there's a universal negative and sort of restricted glance between both countries and in fact many countries in relation to China at this time which is challenging but I think it's much more nuanced than like anything in life it's far more nuanced than it seems at a high level. I think that's a really important point and I also think that's one that we've seen messaged out of the new administration when we see Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan when they first were shaping up their foreign policy they were clear to say that there are areas of cooperation and potentially competition with China and climate change being one of those areas of cooperation as you surface. Look I might bring Tao into the conversation now we know that there is a bit of a global stash over some of China's tech giants at the moment it's no secret that there's a there's disagreement between the US and China over the fate of big tech leaders like Huawei and ZTE but Tao what I wanted to bring you in on is it's not just the US cracking down on Chinese big tech right now it's also China cracking down on Chinese big tech right now we've seen some big muscle movements over the last 12 months where leaders of tech companies in China have come a cropper of the CCP we've seen restriction on listing on overseas capital markets how are you seeing this from the Chinese government's perspective is there a bit of a crackdown on big tech happening and if so why is it is it part of this US China stash or is it something entirely different and domestically perhaps orientated instead thank you for this question and thanks for inviting me to this forum I think I would not characterize recent regulation tightened regulatory tightening China as a crackdown on big tech I think we need to separate this these two issues so since 2018 the US has tightened China's restriction to you know access to technology banning sales of certain semiconductors chip you know chip equipment to Huawei and ZTE as you mentioned and as Heather mentioned under Biden administration these restrictions has actually intensified it did not ease and indeed it's unlikely to ease because you know USC tech rivalry as a core part of rivalry with China and so you know Chinese investment in technology has been restricted highly scrutinized and probably you know impossible to proceed in the future and and some some restrictions have also been placed on academic collaboration as well China's response on this front is as indicated in the five-year plan and so on is on one hand continue to advocate for you know continued integration with the world and collaboration and the same time pursue market opening but also preparing for the worse right for things not easing and maybe the restrictions intensifying so there has been an increased emphasis on technological innovation and self-reliance in China which means increased investment in in hard tech as for example semiconductors and advanced manufacturing and so on and to to basically shore up its own capabilities and continue to push for digitalization and building digital infrastructures including 5G the recent regulatory tightening is in the internet space is really stemming from a rectification I would say of earlier lax regulations on internet finance on antitrust on data privacy and data security and so on so forth they are mainly you know domestic agenda about controlling risk including financial risk reducing monopoly power and have better oversight it's not inconsistent with supporting technology and you know supporting digitalization data security part I think is perhaps influenced by the US China dynamic because in the current political atmosphere every country is talking about data security as a national security and so China is also sensitive to that and and realize that a lot of the rules and regulations were lacking and so they have come up with tighter rules I just want to pick up on one thing you said there that data security is national security and I'm actually going to then throw this across to Tim Watts because it seems that in these conversations when we're talking about technology data etc what once were hived off as being tech issues are now seen considered universally almost by countries as also being security issues Tim from your perspective how do you see both US China tech competition impacting Australia but also how do you see this kind of securitization of technology and data playing out in the Australian domestic sphere as well sure and I should start by acknowledging I'm joining you today from the traditional lands of the Buonarung people in the Kuala Nation from here in Melbourne it's great to be a part of this panel look the first thing to note on this topic is that you know these trends represent a really big change for Australia we've benefited enormously perhaps more than any other country in the world from that kind of post-urogri round period of increasing trade openness increasing technological integration standards harmonization I mean as an open economy as an open society we've thrived in that world this world we're moving into now where governments are increasingly using technology policy as well as economic policy to pursue strategic ends you know that's a big change for us it's going to require a bit of a change in conceptual thinking for government because reality and a lot of these technology markets now you know these are increasingly state driven markets you know they're not driven by sort of commercial outcomes in the way that they once were so Australia is going to have to adapt to this there's a lot of challenges for Australia in domestic policymaking here you know you only have to imagine a world where we're in one technology ecosystem and a lot of our export markets are in another technology ecosystem and imagine the challenge for for our exporters particularly in you know very human facing sectors like services exports but there are also opportunities but only opportunities that we can realise if we get through that conceptual change and the way the Australian government thinks of it with these state driven markets we're going to see new market opportunities for exporting into other states that share our strategic circumstances or share our security concerns we're looking for trusted suppliers but we're really going to need governments by a bigger role in leading that this is not just about government regulation it's also about government investment and setting directions in R&D and innovation policy we've seen around the world a big increase in the amount of industry policy not just in you know defence procurement but in strategically significant or sensitive technology sectors you know sectors like AI like quantum security quantum computing and that's something that Australia is going to have to push into in a policy space in a big way it's really notable when you look around the world that quantum computing investment quantum computing is a big part of the post-COVID recovery strategies of countries like you know China, Japan, EU, Netherlands, Germany, France, India all of which have billion dollar or multi-billion dollar investments in quantum computing state-led investments in their quantum computing sector it's really notable that in Australia we don't even have a strategy for directing quantum computing investment in this country and in this new world that we're moving into unless we can get a more active government in these spaces you know Australia is going to be left behind here. Well one of the areas where we do arguably have an active sector of the government is in our diplomacy capability I might bring in Ambassador Fekin into the conversation I see you're sitting behind a recent Australian cyber and critical tech engagement strategy and I know a big part of that is thinking about what role the Australian government has on a number of these issues including kind of supply chains building out our our capability and working with partners from your perspective two things one what role can Australia as a kind of a small-ish middle power play in these global stashes a and then b to the extent we can play where are our main lines of effort? Let me characterize it maybe I think we should be thinking big and acting shrewdly and let me see if I can dig into that a little bit you rightly pointed out behind me you know we launched an international cyber and critical tech engagement strategy for all of the reasons that we're already discussing in this panel and thanks very much for having me here today which was recognition that the world is undoubtedly changing at a significant rate of knots that there are these key areas of especially digital technology certainly those technologies that feed off of the infrastructure that cyberspace provides us with such as AI, such as quantum machine learning a whole range of these new technologies now which are becoming such common parts of lexicon for the general public in a way that I think probably is taken many by surprise and the realization that it is important that we as as you say perhaps not the most highly populated country in the world but certainly technologically significant country needed to be involved more prominently in the international discussion around these broader sets of concerns you know where I began in this job and the Australian began in its international outreach was very clearly about what did we want cyberspace to look like how could we shape that and well what we learned is is that if you direct your efforts in particular areas you can have significant impact in the way that the global environment is shaped now you know one benchmark that you could use is is in cyberspace around the UN group of government experts the UN open-ended working group and all those processes that are going on the UN we targeted our voice in a very direct way to work the middle ground to make sure that we were there with new ideas new thinking on on what could be next and that is the same in terms of this broader technology environment and absolutely in terms of the current coded situation it's not only accelerated our focus on all these areas of technology but it's also meant that we've had to think more clearly about well what does our supply chain look like because it's shown us the fragility of that globalized idea of supply chain now I don't think you know globalized concepts of tech supply chain are going to disappear entirely but certainly you know policies like the international cyber and critical tech engagement strategy and a range of other policies that government is taking colleagues are addressing are aimed and targeted at trying to ensure that we are best placed to take advantage of what's going on and it's interesting you know if you look at um blinkens recent speech um to uh the the uh it was an AI conference uh sorry the the national security commission on artificial intelligence uh summit and there's a couple of things that he said which resonate very strongly with the way that we're looking at this as well it's you know it's not that you need to unsure everything but we need to work to partners and he used the term to friend shore or near shore and I think that's a really interesting concept to work to it's how do we work more creatively with other partners and we've certainly been doing that through the quad mini laterals bilaterals to think about how do we shape that supply chain so that we can use trusted vendors and trusted suppliers know where the tail of that supply chain comes from know that there's some transparency around that supply chain and you know it's excellent work that my home affairs colleagues have been doing for some time now on driving that uh you know the domestic discussion on supply chain resilience and what it looks like we're taking that further with colleagues across government to have that conversation internationally to ensure that we can not only diversify our supply chain but ensure that we have trust built in as far as possible into that increasingly diverse supply chain that we're now working with. Tao I might bring you back into the conversation at this point because I think what we've heard pretty much across the board today is that there's a bit of a renaissance in industry policy it wasn't very it wasn't very sexy in the 80s and the 90s and now all countries are doing it Australia's doing it we've heard an eloquent plea from Tim Watts for Australia to be doing more on quantum for instance the US is doing it even though industry policy was once anathema to the Americans China's doing it too um so my question to you is where do you see this going looking ahead 12 months 18 months with a resurgence of industry policy where does this leave the world does it actually mean that globalism as the title of this session was titled it does it mean that globalism is dead what is going to replace it and what does the world look like and what does the global economic situation look like 12 months 18 months into the future as we all start to do industry policy in this space more thank you that's a very good question it's quite ironic that the US one of the big accusations on China of course is that China has conducted industrial policy subsidizing its domestic firms and that makes Chinese firms inefficient uncompetitive but somehow it worked wonders so therefore the US is going to do it as well so it's it's unclear to me that you know is that going to be really successful the current world with an open economy globalization and so on has led to deep integration especially in the tech space where you know US actually is the absolute leader in technology with you know the upstream for example in the semiconductor space upstream the design and so on and the IP are all from the US the manufacturing are in Taiwan and Korea and so on are in the French or in the alliance of the US is only the assembly at the last stage that is a lot of that is in China but I think the US it would be very interesting to see how this collaboration with with allies work because the policy is you know allies please work with us to have a united front against China but by the way I'm going to subsidize my semiconductor company so the manufacturing is in the US not in any of the allies space so I'm curious how these policies you know all for oneself each for oneself works I think the end result it probably will not happen in the next 12 to 18 months though because reshaping the whole industrial structure and it was take a long time but I think you know eventually subsidies and so on from each countries will try to I suppose disassemble the already quite competitive supply chain a very efficient supply chain that means that even though companies may not want to do so to de-globalize and decouple political pressures from each government is going to force the companies to do that that's going to raise the cost of production for companies that's going to make things less efficient as before and that's going to mean higher cost for consumers for taxpayers in every country not just in the US or in China so I think that's not a ideal outcome but probably a more realistic outcome given the political winds that's blowing in most countries at the moment. Tim I might bring you in here because it's interesting Taos mentioned this concept of efficiency which has been the organizing principle I would argue of of liberal economics for some decades but we also now have a competing concept of resilience as well and I wonder if you have a reflection on the extent to which I mean to efficiency and resilience in this area do they trade off against each other or are they one of the same coin I suppose COVID has really shown us that sometimes very efficient supply chains may not be the supply chains that get us through in a crisis so welcome your reflections on that kind of complex trade-off in the tech space. Yeah I mean I found myself reflecting while listening to Taos observations that while the Americans may they may disavow industry policy in word in action they're probably the the world's greatest exponent of industry policy and they have a and have since you know since the Cold War a very complex system of state institutions and policies designed to promote their their technology sector like people like Mariner Matsukado have detailed in you know in great depth the way that institutions like DARPA for basic research flowing through to Incutel for directing venture capital funding to strategic imperatives of the US security establishment work together to create the great private sector efficient companies that we we know and love like you know the apples and the googles of the world you know even companies like Tesla and SpaceX the sort of the new generation of those have benefited enormously from that innovation system that the US has been operating in this space but I think there is a different calculation on the efficiency and resilience context when we are moving into a less stable global order less stable from you know COVID but less stable increasingly in the future from climate change and less stable from geostrategic considerations so so maybe that the balance between efficiency and resilience you know hasn't changed in a philosophical sense but it has changed because the context that the companies are operating in and that that nations are operating in is significantly different there there is just a lot more risk and instability built into the way that the global supply chains operate today I should also say in cybersecurity a moment will follow another significant source of instability across international supply chains we've got a few questions coming in from the audience and keep them coming I'll come to them in a moment I just wanted to wrap up with one final question to set a really a baseline for our discussion going forward because it occurs to me we're talking a lot about technology is this huge amorphous thing but it might be helpful to for us to break it down a little bit into what some call the technology stack right so the bottom you've got the inputs you've got the infrastructure you've got software and algorithms it's in on top of that and then there's a social and informational layer that sits on top of that and I suppose I might having set up a little bit of that framework throw to Toby to ask you two things one is my framework broadly right and please tear it to shreds and two how does Australia go about I guess prioritising or thinking about those different layers and making sure we're doing the right action in the right places yeah look it's um it's a frequently asked question is so you know you're the mandate of your job has expanded and you've got this thing called critical technology on the end of it what does that mean um and and if I'm honest it's important that you don't tie it to you know exact technology types I first need to caveat the fact that yes inside government within classified circles we're absolutely you know looking through one of those technologies that are critical to us as a nation you know and that that could vary depending on you know what your supply chain looks like what you may have a shortage of or a surplus of at any given time um but certainly when when we were conceptualizing critical technology and where the expansion of this position came from it began from the position of okay so we have cyberspace which is the infrastructure part you know which which creates the the the internet that we know and love and operate on often without even thinking about where it comes from but then there's this whole range of other technologies which are feeding off of that infrastructure and the data that it provides so therefore logic and you know look the first big tech decision that really was if you're like a canary in the coal mine was the 5g issue um which you know we should be speaking about for quite some time now in the international context but that illustrated that when we have these new technology innovations which build on that infrastructure and then further enable it and also then produce enormous amounts of data which are then going to feed further that innovation cycle that certainly was the jumping off point but you know look still we would include within that you know biotech and critical minerals you know though the absolute base sources of how we can then build silicon chips and and build all the parts of the you know critical infrastructure that we need to continue um so you know for us we took a definition of critical technology as meaning those technologies that are critical to your national security your economy or your social cohesion and and within the context of the strategy that we wrote we decided not to drill down into individual subsets of particular technologies on purpose because certainly for the international engagement part it's important to be thinking in broader concepts you know you asked the question of me first off around well what should Australia be doing well what's certainly evident is whether we like it or not now technology is being interpreted its use is being interpreted in extremely different manners and that means that we've got to be a bit more conscious and protective in projecting our values into the way that technology cycles mature and also the way that technology is absorbed into international systems otherwise we could well find ourselves in a world which we don't really want to live in to be frank because many of these technologies are being interpreted in quite draconian ways which which are completely opposed you know the way that Australian values and interests and principles um adhere to so you know it's that that's where we began with and that's what the strategy really tries to outlay so that we can engage and there's broader subset of you know diplomats government officials can engage on these issues with confidence without having to have you know a deep understanding of how an AI sorry an AI algorithm might be programmed you know they don't need to know that but they do and can do good work in terms of projecting our interests in the tech space because in terms of windows of opportunity I would say we genuinely have now I would say a five to ten year window in which to shape these technologies which are maturing rapidly in ways again but I think the public would find quite hard to understand and sometimes it's good just to reflect on history and think about where we are digitally and the way that our lives are so um sculpted by our digital engagements even compared to five years ago if you know and I would challenge anyone who's listening today just go and do a self-check of where they may have been digitally five years ago compared to now and I bet that it will be quite surprised now if you ramp that up to a national a regional and then a global level um we need to be in the middle of that game um to be frank regardless of which exact technology we shouldn't tie ourselves to exactly which technology is because it may mean you know much like an innovation cycle it might be that you target efforts in one area and realize ah no it's not that area that's the important one we need to shift quickly so having that flexibility to be able to turn quickly is absolutely vital I would say in terms of this area Toby I'm going to stop you there because we've got 10 seconds before there's a hard cut off here thank you so much to our panelists and specifically also the audience for your questions we look forward to keeping the conversation going