A strategy document leaked by AXIOS news agency in January 2021 revealed the existence of a China Strategy Group, co-chaired by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen (Hillary Clinton adviser), that produced a series of recommendations to the incoming Biden administration to restrain Chinese tech ascendancy (Allen-Ebrahimian, 2021). These included developing a ‘new plurilateral coalition of “techno-democracies” to strengthen cooperation’ and ‘protect and preserve key areas of competitive technological advantage’. It further proposed an ‘International Technology Finance Corporation . . . to extend loans and loan guarantees to developing nations for tech infrastructure buildout consistent with liberal values, to counter the Digital Silk Road’, alongside a ‘Global Body for Standard-Setting’ and ‘multilateral trust zones to achieve global integration that promotes American values’. The objective was to ‘incentivize collective innovation against China in AI, quantum computing, 5 G, etc . . . To gain access to the benefits of the Trust Zone, countries would have to commit to a Huawei-free zone’.
The Biden and second Trump administrations have transformed a considerable part ofthe China Strategy Group’s recommendations into policy. Initiatives have proliferated, from the addition of Chinese technology firms to the US (restricted) Entity List and the expansion of export controls (many of which impact third countries via the Foreign Direct Product Rule), to inbound and outbound investment screening mechanisms, and a punitive licensing regime for semiconductors, AI, and access to compute (Sastry et al., 2024). Measures have also targeted particular firms. Along with platform giants Huawei and ZTE, AI firm DeepSeek has attracted a range ofpunitive measures following the release of its breakthrough R1 model – including CFIUS reviews, bans on public procurement and use by government personnel, and the potential ban ofits app from Apple and Android stores. Meanwhile, the Trump administration signalled its support for domestic US platforms by co-ordinating the \$500 bn Stargate investment, a project to build AI datacentres within the United States funded by a private sector consortium led by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and UAE-based MGX, while repealing AI safety regulations. And Trump inked well over \$200 bn in major deals for the proliferation of AI data centres involving OpenAI, NVIDIA, Amazon, and others on a tour of the Middle East in May 2025 (Ghosh, 2025).
State Platform Capitalism
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