The United States needs to reconsider its decade-long shift toward "digital decoupling" from China. These measures are built upon a flawed premise: that cybersecurity can be achieved by treating cyberspace as a "territorial fortress" and withdrawing from globalized data exchanges, capital flows, and supply chains. Evidence demonstrates that decoupling has not reduced cyber threats; that nearly all breaches result from vulnerabilities in U.S. software rather than foreign hardware or services in the U.S. market; and that export controls have incentivized Beijing’s drive toward technological self-reliance, reduced Western visibility into Chinese markets, and cost American firms critical R&D revenue, threatening their leadership in the sector. Further, by militarizing civilian sectors and weaponizing interdependence, the U.S. risks provoking retaliatory blockades of essential raw materials. The author concludes that decoupling is an expensive, indirect approach to cybersecurity that ignores the irreversible reality of a shared, interconnected digital domain. Rather than pursuing a zero-sum technological arms race, the U.S. should pivot toward a strategy of persistent engagement, systemic hardening of domestic infrastructure, and pragmatic competition with China as a technological peer.
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doi.org/10.55682/cdr/pkjc-f4fh
The Cyber Defense Review
Volume 11, Issue 2