Institutional Aspects of Rivalry for Technological Leadership: Market Versus Security

Technologies in the conditions of the twenty-first century become a driver of transformations not only in the economy, but also in geopolitics, having a critical impact on the economic development and security of states. The aggravation of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China makes the problem of identifying the modern concept of technological leadership, the nature and direction of institutional measures to achieve it, urgent. Modern state governments actively use both open and latent instruments, in particular in terms of non-tariff regulation of international trade and requirements for national investments. These institutional modernizations affect the development of the entire global economy already in the medium and long terms. The desire of the US and the EU to displace Chinese business from supply chains in high-tech sectors, in particular in the production of semiconductors, may lead to a significant reorganization of global value chains, increase the reshoring of many technological processes from the PRC to other relatively neutral regional centers, in particular Latin America, Middle East, Central Europe. For countries with growing markets, global geopolitical conflict can create conditions for sectoral reorientation of their own economy and foreign trade, diversification of production, opportunities to strengthen their international competitiveness. New alliances in the global semiconductor supply system demonstrate the breaking of priorities established in the Western business tradition regarding the dominance of market feasibility and efficiency criteria over non-market ones. This also reflects a strong demand for the exceptional importance of national and regional security issues in matters of innovative and technological development.