US thinkers once looked to the future of I nternet technology in China with dreams of liberalization. China and the US co-built and jointly profited from the 2000s digital economy and the smart phone revolution\, yet in the 2010s both countries’ governments became incr easingly anxious about their vulnerability and interdependence in the digit al sphere. By 2020\, anxieties combined with trade conflict\, Covid recrimi nations\, and AI futurism\, cementing a rivalry mindset that today shapes p artial decoupling and conditions of continued interconnection. This talk tr aces how US officials and thinkers acted on their visions of the future\, a nd how reality intervened.
Graham Webster is a lecturer and research scholar in the Program on Geopolitics\, Technology\, and Governance at Stan ford University\, where he leads the DigiChina Project. He specializes in t echnology policy and development in China and US-China relations. His repor ting and commentary has appeared in WIRED\, Foreign Affairs\, and the MIT T echnology Review\, among others. Graham was previously a senior fellow and lecturer at Yale Law School\, where he was responsible for the Paul Tsai Ch ina Center's Track 2 dialogues between the United States and China. In the past\, he wrote a CNET News blog on technology and society from Beijing\, w orked at the Center for American Progress\, and taught East Asian politics at NYU's Center for Global Affairs. Graham holds a master's degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in journalism and international studies from Northwestern University. He is based in Oak land\, California.
LOCATION:WCC\; 3013 Room GEO:0;0 ORGANIZER;CN="API User":MAILTO:api@law.harvard.edu URL;VALUE=URI:https://hls.harvard.edu/events/how-us-internet-optimism-turne d-to-ai-alarm-with-china/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 DTSTART:20260308T070000 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR