Playing to Win: The Use of Export Controls to Address Non-military Strategic Competition

Technology and national security have been intimately related throughout American history. Over the past eighty-five years, the United States has increasingly made use of export controls to prevent adversarial countries from using the fruits of its technological advancement to strengthen their militaries and harm American interests. Today, strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China involves a myriad of technologies which present risks outside of, as well as within, the military context. Chinese exports of technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G communications, can promote the country’s authoritarian model abroad, enable economic coercion, and help to enrich the regime. The Belt and Road and “Made in China 2025” initiatives illustrate China’s use of novel technologies to further its global ambitions. Export controls may help to confront these threats. This note asks whether the Bureau of Industry and Security (a government body tasked with implementing export controls) can regulate exports of novel technologies for purposes of non-military strategic competition. Through examination of the statutes authorizing export controls and of the deference traditionally afforded to the Executive in administrative and foreign affairs matters, this note concludes that such export controls are authorized.