The Telecommunications Industry in US-China Context: Evolving toward Near-Complete Bifurcation

The US and Chinese telecommunications sectors long been interconnected, but both countries are developing policies that will decouple technology stacks, supply chains, and markets. Once in motion, these policies will be difficult to reverse, given the political distrust that has engulfed the bilateral relationship. Over the next five years, a full bifurcation may take the industry back to the days of separate and competing national standards, problems with interoperability, and the end of a globalized value chain with all its attendant benefits in terms of cost, innovation, and compatibility. The growing cleavage between the two telecommunication systems will have broad ripple effects across a great number of technological sectors, including an intensifying struggle over the future of the internet. The challenge for US policymakers over the next decade will be to counter Chinas early lead in 5G while simultaneously enabling interoperability and a globalized supply chain. This will require perceptive domestic industrial policies, substantial investment, and skillful diplomacy that values and refreshes global multi-stakeholder governance and standards-setting processes. Navigating this complex geopolitical, technical, and economic landscape will be hugely difficult for existing US institutions and will require US officials to reimagine how the United States sets telecommunications policy within broader technology policy frameworks.