Leapfrogs and Shortcuts: Paths to Technological Performance on US and Chinese Strategic Evolutionary Landscapes

This study adapts a model from evolutionary biology—the evolutionary fitness landscape—and applies it to the problem of illegal technology transfer. The author conceptualizes the strategy of technology theft as a combination of inputs that, like biological traits, result in a particular level of performance, which can equate to biological fitness. As in evolutionary biology, these input combinations are charted similarly to a topographical map to show where peaks of performance exist. The author examines three cases of illegal technology transfer by China of US militarily critical technologies from the 1980s through the early 2010s.