China-US 5G Competition: Narrow Economic Competition and Broad Security Competition

Currently, China and the United States are competing in various fields. Among them, science and technology, especially the field of 5G, is the primary area of competition between the two countries. It not only involves science and technology but also plays a decisive role in national security in the economic, political, military, and other fields. This paper explores whether the China-US 5G competition is economic or security competition from offensive realism. Besides, this paper also examines the role of economic ties and the international community in providing flexibility in the formulation of China-US 5G security strategies. This paper validates the underlying assumptions of offensive realism and supplements the literature that has previously neglected this theoretical perspective and the flexible factors of security competition. These findings suggest that with survival as the goal, great powers continuously take steps to maintain national security and maximize their survival prospects. The research results show that the China-US 5G competition is a broader national security competition based on economic competition.