Contested ground: who is winning the US and China competition on technology and the strategic geography that underpins it? And what does that tell us about strategy?

Contested ground: who is winning the US and China competition on technology and the strategic geography that underpins it? And what does that tell us about strategy?

Who is winning the strategic competition between the US and China? What does the US need to do to stay ahead or to catch up where necessary? Does the US still need its allies to compete with China? How does the technological competition between the US and China collide with the struggle for strategic geography, the narrow gates through which the global economy still flows?

The Ukraine war and China’s support for Russia transformed European and Indo-Pacific perceptions of China’s willingness to use proxy force to achieve its goals. Allies saw China in a new and more menacing light as well as realising the need, long urged by the US, to spend more on defence for effective deterrence in Europe. Now, however, after Greenland and Iran, fears on technological sovereignty, and frustration with US political interference in European politics, some allies are drawing an equivalence between the US and China, seeing China as more predictable if not benign.

This Ditchley conference, held in partnership with American Ditchley and the Greentree Foundation will gather policy makers, business and technology leaders and other experts to examine the state of US and China competition across the combined lenses of geography, technology, soft and hard power, weighing which side is ahead on what and where and how better cooperation when possible, and management of differences when not, might keep the political West united and ahead of the authoritarian challenge.