SAN FRANCISCO, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The United States should collaborate with China on innovation rather than "control" Chinese technologies, which could set back growth in technology growth, Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), said on Monday.
Allen, president of the Washington-based non-profit organization representing over 200 American companies doing business with China, made the remarks at a seminar held by Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center of Stanford University in northern California.
Allen stressed the importance of cooperation on both sides so that innovation can thrive amid the trade tensions between the United States and China.
"American companies and Chinese companies have worked together in innovation space, in a very beautiful manner," said Allen, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary for China at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
"You can't imagine a company like Apple without China, and you can't imagine China without a company like Apple. I mean they produced tremendous value for everyone," he said.
He also said U.S. innovation involving Chinese students and professors and joint venture activities have been remarkably productive over the last four decades.
Allen warned that the U.S. government's move to restrict a category of "emerging technologies" out of "national security" concerns would negatively impact the global innovation community.
"How many thousands of collaborative research ventures are going to be impacted by that?" he said, urging Washington to define the category carefully.
"We are entering this technology battle at a wrong time," Allen told the audience, including students and faculty members of Stanford as well as the public.
"China is becoming a middle-income country with a per capita GDP of 9,000 U.S. dollars," he said, adding that there are hundreds of millions of middle-class Chinese who want to buy American stuff and services that U.S. businesses want to sell to them.
"As China is transitioning from an export-led economy to a consumption-led economy, now is the time that we should really be taking advantage of that and working to supply and becoming a good friend of Chinese middle-class consumers," he said.
