Tech Diplomacy for a New Global Order

Weak growth across Western economies, disrupted supply chains, and escalating geopolitical risks involving nuclear powers are causing increased turbulence in the international sphere. At the same time, the rapid ascent of Asian industrial powers has generated trade imbalances, and increasingly unilateral US actions have strained long-standing alliances. These trends point to a deeper erosion of cooperative frameworks among advanced democracies that is reminiscent of the early 1970s.

That earlier period was marked by the 1973 oil shock, the Vietnam War, and Japan’s rise as an export powerhouse. Unilateral US actions under President Richard Nixon unsettled allies and exposed the limits of postwar institutions. In response, figures such as financier David Rockefeller and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski argued that growing global interdependence required new, flexible forms of cooperation. This led to the creation of the Trilateral Commission in 1973, bringing together leaders from the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. It became an early example of “minilateral”, track 1.5 diplomacy—issue-specific, informal dialogue among policymakers, business leaders, and experts.

Europe played a central role in this effort. Max Kohnstamm, a key architect of the European Single Market, chaired the European section of the Trilateral Commission. In 1989, Jacques Delors used a Trilateral Commission conference to outline his vision for a unified European Single Market. The format demonstrated how informal cooperation could reinforce formal integration and systemic reform.

For more than five decades, trilateral cooperation among the United States, Europe, and East Asia has underpinned technological progress. Semiconductors—arguably the most critical general-purpose technology—were developed through highly internationalized supply chains, talent mobility, and massive cross-border investment. Moore’s law of faster and cheaper chips became reality thanks to “hundreds of billions of dollars of investment by industry players from many nations … over the preceding decades”.

Global specialization enabled efficiency. The separation of design and manufacturing created an international division of labor spanning North America, Europe, and East Asia. Today, a single chip may involve more than four countries and multiple transcontinental journeys, underscoring the depth of interdependence. These efficiencies made semiconductors ubiquitous, powering appliances, vehicles, and smartphones.

Talent flows were equally critical. By 1990, immigrants made up roughly one third of Silicon Valley’s scientists and engineers, with large shares from China, Taiwan, India, and Hong Kong. The Taiwanese diaspora was particularly important in transferring know-how and building world-class semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan.

Investment followed talent. Deep US capital markets and foreign direct investment supported hardware production and, later, software ecosystems. Samsung’s long-standing semiconductor investments in Texas illustrate how global capital reinforces local industrial bases. Together, flows of goods, talent, capital, and knowledge embedded Europe, North America, and East Asia in a tightly connected technological triad.

Today, this model is under strain. Even before President Donald Trump took office for a second time, US engagement with Europe in the Indo-Pacific had weakened. While US strategy gradually shifted toward closer coordination with allies to deter China, this coordination has focused more on Japan and Australia than on Europe. Under Trump, US Asia policy has become more explicitly bilateral, centered on asymmetrical trade and technology agreements, domestic reindustrialization, and containment of China.

In this emerging “Tech Cold War”, competition with China is not only economic but strategic, centered on control over general-purpose technologies. Unlike in the original Cold War, innovation today is driven largely by private firms operating in globally interdependent systems. This creates new vulnerabilities, notably supply-chain choke points that can be weaponized.

As multilateral structures erode, countries outside the US-China duopoly face growing pressure. European and East Asian democracies remain deeply intertwined with the US economy while depending heavily on Chinese markets and imports. The challenge is not decoupling, but managing dependence and rebalancing cooperation under conditions of strategic rivalry.

Minilateral tech diplomacy offers a viable path forward. As Brzezinski warned, “without mutual confidence and credibility no alliance relationship can endure”. Traditional responses to dominant powers—bandwagoning or balancing—are ill-suited to current conditions. Given uncertainty about US commitments, soft balancing through flexible, issue-driven minilateral cooperation is increasingly attractive.

Minilateral arrangements typically involve three to seven partners, focus on concrete objectives, and include informal exchanges among governments, firms, and researchers. They are “practical, adaptable, economical, and voluntary”, avoiding heavy institutionalization. In fast-moving technological domains, such formats are well suited to securing value chains, attracting talent, and pooling investment.

For Europe, several existing instruments can be adapted to this logic. Extensions of EU Trade and Technology Councils, currently operating with the US and India, could be explored. EU Digital Partnerships with South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Canada can be strategically linked to association with Horizon Europe—the world’s largest transnational program for research and development, worth €93.5 billion, and which Japan and South Korea joined in 2025. The global Eureka network can be used for joint innovation calls in strategic technologies. Targeted initiatives such as the Semiconductor Talent Incubation Program between Germany and Taiwan, or the Danish International Quantum Hub with Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, offer scalable models.

These formats show how Europe can work pragmatically with Asian technology democracies to secure supply chains, foster innovation, and manage interdependence. Rather than pursuing technological autonomy through insulation, Europe should aim for resilience through diversification and partnership. Managed interdependence—not self-reliance—will define the next phase of globalization.

Strategically, Europe risks marginalization as the United States pivots toward Asia and bilateralism. To counter this, European states should deepen minilateral partnerships with Asian democracies, building scale, talent pools, and credibility that can eventually anchor renewed trilateral cooperation with the United States.

Priorities should include deepening digital and technology partnerships; focusing joint research and development on semiconductors and quantum technologies; pooling public and private investment; facilitating talent mobility and brain circulation; maintaining informal dialogue formats; and strengthening supply-chain resilience through diversification.

The history of trilateral cooperation shows that transcontinental collaboration is both possible and necessary. In an era of weaponizable supply chains and critical technologies, Europe must not sit on the sidelines. By investing in tech minilaterals with Asian partners, Europe can rebuild balance, revive trilateral cooperation, and help shape a more stable and resilient global technological order.

The next chapter of globalization will be written not by those who build walls, but by those who build bridges between the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Alexander Kleibrink is a 2025 Marshall Memorial Fellow. The views expressed herein are reflections from his experience in the fellowship.