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Abstract3D printing (3DP) is a classic disruptive technology that is likely to have a huge and widespread impact on the world. This revolutionary technology is likely to dramatically change business models, shift production location, shrink supply chains, and alter the global economic order, potentially degrading the importance of the Asian export manufacturing platforms and revitalizing the US innovation engine and the US economy. In the process, 3DP will change the 'global operating environment' for policy makers as well as business and labor. 3DP is already a proven 'general purpose' technology that is being used for an enormous range of applications, such as fabricating spare and new parts for planes, trains and automobiles and thousands of items in between. It has huge environmental benefits, including substantial reduction in resources consumed in production, manufacturing products only on demand, and 'just in time production' of goods at or near where they are consumed, greatly reducing the carbon footprint of goods produced and shipped thousands of miles to consumers.

The coming decade could provide the opportunity for the United States to consolidate stable Sino-American relations and expand US-China cooperation on a wide range of global and regional issues. Such a constructive relationship would not be conflict-free or without competitive aspects, especially in the political and economic realms, nor is its development inevitable. But the United States is not likely to conclude that a strategy of containment toward China is either necessary or feasible. Similarly, China will likely continue to pursue a strategy of seeking cooperative ties with the United States rather than adopting an anti-hegemonist coalition strategy to counter American power and influence. A key factor underlying this assessment is that 'globalization' is reshaping the global strategic environment. In this new strategic situation, the interests of the United States and China will limit strategic competition between them and compel closer cooperation to respond to shared strategic threats and challenges. Globalization has led to converging - though by no means identical - national interests in many critical areas and a common interest in maintaining the overall global system of regimes, treaties and organizations governing international economic, political and security relations to the benefit of both countries. This high-level common interest does not preclude sharp differences over specific issues, but it is likely to create pressure on the United States and China to cooperate in many areas to defend, maintain and strengthen the system and to restrain them from pursuing containment or confrontational strategies toward each other. (J Contemp China/GIGA)