Paper Review. "Securitization Practices and Strategic Adjustments in U.S. Policy on Global Supply Chain"
Topic: Securitization Practices and Strategic Adjustments in U.S. Policy on Global Supply Chain
Author: Guan Chuanjing (Associate Professor, School of International Relations, University of International Business and Economics)
Reference: Guan, C. J. (2022). Securitization Practices and Strategic Adjustments in U.S. Policy on Global Supply Chain. Journal of International Security Studies (01),73-99+157. doi:10.14093/j.cnki.cn10-1132/d.2022.01.004.
At the beginning of 2021, the Biden administration promoted a series of new policies on supply chain, especially strengthening domestic industrial policies with "national security" as the narrative means, supporting advanced manufacturing and emerging technology research and development, and building international supply chain alliances in key industries with security Allies. Compared with the Trump administration, the author thinks that the Biden administration's new supply-chain policy further emphasizes the principle of equality on economic security and national security.
Regarding the nature of this policy shift, two viewpoints have emerged, namely strategic shift and functional shift. The two views are concerned about the policy implications of these structural conditions change, the only "functional shift theory" pay more attention to industrialization and COVID - 19 outbreak caused by impact policy should be modified, and the theory of "strategic shift" is more focus on the advantages of supply chain competition and technological strategic competition in countries such as the dimension of nationalism. Both of these perspectives are supported by relevant policy experience, which respectively reflect one aspect of the policy changes of the U.S. global supply chain. This also indicates that the U.S. globalization strategy has entered a period of deep adjustment, and its causes, methods and policy impacts are increasingly complex. The author believes that from the practice of the above policy changes, "safety narrative" is a common point in the supply chain policies of the Trump administration and the Biden administration.
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, the author thinks that 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 postpandemic era.