One of key dimensions of the rising tension between the U.S. and China is advanced technologies such as AI, Big Data, and robotics. The conflict affects not only the U.S. and China, but also other countries in the Asia-Pacific including Japan. For instance, in AI technology, an increasing number of Japanese firms conduct R and D activities in the United States (e.g., Toyota Research Institute). If these firms manufacture products and/or provide services using the AI technologies in China, they will be potential targets of the U.S. regulatory controls originally intended to confront the Chinese competition. Because industrial firms cross-cut national borders, the U.S.-China relations cannot be fully grasped without examining the multi-layered networks of firms and industries that may or may not follow the perimeters of the nation-states. In this research, I disentangled such complexity of U.S.-China relations by discussing the case of advanced technologies in the next generation automobile industry (autonomous driving and electric vehicle). Analytically, I put to work the theory of “strategic action fields” (Fligstein and McAdam), and argued that overfocusing on “international relations”—military and security issues as well as state actors—might prevent us from seeing the complex components and interactions that make up the “U.S.-China tension.”