Title: Dual-Use Technology Competition through Industrial Policies: Experimental Evidence of China-U.S. Security Dilemma

Speaker: Andrew Cheon

Discussant: Jiahua Yue

Coauthor: Yunyi Huang

Abstract:

Industrial policies are seeing a resurgence in an era where their economic gains often spill across national borders. We argue that a compelling explanation for this puzzle lies in the security externalities industrial policies generate, particularly when they target cutting-edge dual-use technologies with significant potential for disruption. We test our theory of technological security dilemma by investigating whether the announcement of an industrial policy targeting a dual-use technology changes threat perceptions of the public and whether there are psychological mechanisms that facilitate this process. A parallel survey experiment of more than 1,600 respondents from China and the United States finds that 1) presenting the dual-use technologies in terms of their military (rather than civilian) applications makes the industrial policy seem more threatening, and 2) being told that the other country (rather than their own) is the initiator makes the industrial policy seem more threatening. Such effects are mutually reinforcing. We also find evidence that threat perceptions amplified by psychological dynamics are associated with more hawkish foreign policy preferences.

Speaker bio:

Andrew Cheon

Cheon’s research focuses on governance, contestation, and conflict in the age of climate change and great power competition. He is currently researching global and regional leadership in the international system and microfoundations of threat perceptions among great powers.

His teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include International Politics, Global Governance, and International Politics of East Asia. He is the recipient of the 2025 DKU Teaching Award. Cheon is the author of Fueling State Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2023) and the co-author of Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry (Routledge, 2018). He has had papers published in reputable academic journals, including Comparative Political Studies, Economics and Politics, and Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Jiahua Yue

His research focus is international political economy, comparative international development, and Chinese politics. He is also interested in applied computation methods in social science, such as text analysis and image processing tools. His work has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, World Development, among others. He teaches a wide range of topics on international conflict, trade and foreign investment, public opinion, and authoritarian politics.

Yunyi Huang

She is a PhD student of International Relations at UT Austin and leads the Renewable Energy team at UT’s research lab Innovations for Peace and Development. Her research interests lie at the intersection of international political economy and environmental politics. She is currently researching green industrial policies in both the United States and developing countries including China and Vietnam, as well as the UN negotiations on the High Seas Treaty. Prior to UT Austin, she earned her degrees from Peking University and Johns Hopkins SAIS. She also worked as a Policy Analyst for NGOs in international environmental negotiations.