Chess vs Go: Strategic Strength, Gamecraft and China.

• Author: Demy, Timothy J.
• Position: Viewpoint

* The great power nations at the beginning of this 21st century are engaged in multiple domains and dimensions of both collaboration and competition, and are utilizing a variety of strategies to exercise both strength and restraint.

A clear point of competition, growing strategic capability and global tension is China's iterative involvement, development and capability in bioscience and biotechnology. China utilizes broader strategic planning horizons than other nations and attempts to combine efforts from government, academic and commercial sectors--also known as the "triple helix" --to accomplish cooperation and centralization of national agendas.

Propelling such progress in China's rapid "bench to bedside--and beyond" capabilities is an expanding exercise of non-Western ethical guidelines that both broaden the scope of experimentation and provide justificatory bases for China's intellectual property laws. Through such means, China is affecting international bioscience and technology through research tourism, control of intellectual property, medical tourism, and influence in global scientific thought.

Strategizing for short- and long-term gain and the connections to chess and great power gamesmanship is not new to the groups involved in competition.

Games and rational bargaining theory have considered both quantitative and qualitative approaches to zero-sum and other game structures. To be sure, chess is a game of both near-term tactics and overarching strategy, and as such has been--and arguably can be--used as simile, metaphor and example of applicable modes of thought in larger-scale gamecraft--inclusive of nation-state competition in both local and global settings. But "a game" of chess, strategic as it may be, is timed, and although draws are possible--more frequently results in a clear winner, and thus a finite "end."

In contrast, the game of Go is one of achieving competitive advantage, with an understanding and anticipation of shifts in circumstance and "lead" in relative influence and superiority. But perhaps more importantly, it is a game of perdurability, rather than timed moves and a defined conclusion.

Thus, it is important to regard these games as reflective and representative of longstanding cultural mindsets that can contribute to and influence the ways that current and emerging resources--inclusive of biotechnology--are employed on the "playing board" of global hegemony.

A 2019 report to the Senate Select Committee on...