Page 159 - 《国际安全研究》2022年第1期
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Vo1. 40, No. 1, January/February 2022
and Director of Center for Non-traditional Security & Peaceful Development,
Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, 310058).
73 Securitization Practices and Strategic Adjustments in U.S. Policy on
Global Supply Chain
GUAN Chuanjing
[Abstract] Since President Biden took office in 2021, a series of new policies on
supply chain have been initiated by the new administration that include strengthening
domestic industrial build-up on the pretext of “national security”, supporting
advanced manufacturing activities, advancing emerging technology research and
development and developing an international supply chain with its security allies in
key industries. In contrast to the Trump administration, the Biden administration
further underlines the principle of paying equal attention to economic security and
state security. As regards the nature of this important policy change, relevant
researches have presented two different pictures: a strategic one and a functional one.
This paper tends to adopt the securitization of economic policies as the analysis path
to investigate the security effects of the global supply chain, clarify the types of the
economy-security nexus, and further reveal the generation mechanism of “hybrid
securitization practices” in the U.S. new supply chain policy. Viewed from the policy
implementation standpoint, such securitization practices have taken on two distinctly
new features. First, security of the supply chain has been given equal attention with
the strategic competition among major countries under the impact of COVID-19
pandemic. Second, efforts have been made to rebuild the industrial chain via domestic
investment and forge a networked supply chain in key industries so as to exercise
economic power over its strategic rivals. While the new policies are constrained by
the tensions between market forces and long-term strategic interests, they are bound
to bring more uncertainties to the recovery of the global economy in the post-
pandemic era.
[Keywords] securitization operation, the Biden administration, global supply chain,
supply chain security, economic power
[Author] GUAN Chuanjing, Associate Professor, School of International Relations,
University of International Business and Economics (Beijing, 100029).
100 The Theoretical Logics and Implementation Paths of the U.S.
Adjustment of Its Global Supply Chain
LI Shujun and WANG Xiaoming
[Abstract] National security has been playing an increasingly important role in the
U.S. adjustment of its global supply chain ever since the Obama administration and
especially after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Viewed from the
perspective of national security, the logical basis and implementation pathway for the
U.S. adjustment of its global supply chain are mainly revealed in the following fact.
U.S. national security puts a high premium on the values of national interests, whereas
the adjustment of its global supply chain attaches great importance to the
replaceability of products or services. Therefore, the “National Defense Argument”
featuring trade protectionism and “selective trade protectionism” serve, in this paper,
as the theoretical framework for analyzing the U.S. adjustment of its global supply
chain. The “National Defense Argument” advocates restricting or prohibiting import
and export of products or services with national defense significance while “selective
trade protectionism” focuses on the damages done by general trade practices to the
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