Description
Why do rising powers invest in expansive technological development with limited material and security payoff? Conventional wisdom cannot make sense of this puzzle due to its treatment of technology as a background variable of material power. I argue that rising powers treats technological innovation as status projects to both boost up their positions on the international hierarchy and reinforce domestic regime legitimacy. Not only does technological developments update the international status attribute to facilitate states’ ascendency, but they also—when embedded in nationalist narratives—reinforce the collective identification and reduce the salience of domestic problems. I illustrate the dynamics of tech-based status politics by an in-depth process-tracing of China’s three ongoing techno-nationalism projects: Made in China 2025, the lunar exploration programs, and genetic modification. By complementing the materialist-rationalist baseline understanding of technology, this article suggests that the current US-China tech decoupling is not just economic, but symbolic about status competition between the established power and its rising rival. Grasping the socio-psychological dynamics of great power competitions matters for the world to avoid the Thucydides’ trap.
