At the Sydney Dialogue conference hosted by the Australia Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) on April 4, panelists exemplified the growing fear in the West, not that China is some “autocracy,” but that it is actually advancing scientifically, and at faster rates.
Former CEO of Google and chairman of the U.S. Special Competitive Studies Project Eric Schmidt said that China was not like the Soviet Union, because it was “an autocratic competitor that is run by technocrats that is very capable of inventing a new future.”
Andrew Shearer, head of Australia’s Office of National Intelligence, said the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region was starting to “shift away from the United States and its allies, undermining deterrence. We are seeing our longstanding technological edge start to erode, and in some cases that edge is totally gone.”
