Engaging Prometheus: Assessing the security/technology nexus in China and Taiwan

This study addresses the lack of explanatory models for the relationship between security and technological development that are sensitive to the distinctive circumstances of developing states. It analyses the linkages between the various factors that constitute the security/technology nexus in order to demonstrate its nature in China and Taiwan. This study examines state support for high technology development between 1949 and the present, focusing on the aspects of sectoral orientation, temporal focus, domestic structure and the degree of autonomy of technological development.; The study finds that there is a close relationship between security perceptions and technological development in both cases. While traditional inter-state security concerns have been important throughout the period covered by this study, the salience of intra-state security concerns in China and Taiwan has meant that the security/technology nexus in these cases has been quite distinct from that of the developed industrial, states. Technological development in China and Taiwan has been largely oriented toward supporting the perceived requirements of economic development for much of the period in question.