Tags
CFIUS, China, Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, foreign direct investment, industrial policy, James Mathis, mercantilism, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Rex Tillerson, semiconductors, Steven Mnuchin, super-computing, technology transfer, Trump, Wilbur Ross
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mathis are meeting with Chinese counterparts today in Washington, D.C. to conduct a “Diplomatic and Security Dialogue” – a stripped down Trump administration version of some of the ginormous official bilateral sessions the two countries have held periodically in recent years.
It’s unclear whether these talks will turn out to be more than the elaborate gabfests their predecessors quickly became. But it’s much clearer that their potential to contribute significantly to America’s security will be limited unless the administration starts taking many more urgently needed steps to move the nation’s Asia grand strategy into the twenty first century. And the major missing piece of this effort continues to be a serious effort to deny China the advanced technologies it will need to continue becoming a more formidable military competitor.
Some promising decisions have been taken, or are being considered. For example, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is thinking of launching a national security review of U.S. trade in semiconductors with an eye toward fending off what he describes as an increasingly dangerous Chinese challenge in this defense-critical sector. Mathis and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have both publicly called for updating the interagency U.S. government process for screening prospective Chinese and other foreign investments in all defense-related companies (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS). And they along with Ross have strongly suggested that they’re thinking of redefining the relevant statute’s mandate to include economic dimensions of national security. Just as encouraging, prominent members of Congress are drafting legislation along these lines.
And most recently, the administration has announced a big new effort to ensure continued American leadership over China in super-computing (although the semiconductor industry isn’t happy with some other features of Mr. Trump’s stance on federally sponsored research and development).
Moreover, the Trump administration is responding to the Chinese challenge much more promptly than its predecessor, which prioritized this cluster of problems very late in its tenure. Its proposed responses to mercantile Chinese industrial policies in technology industries were especially weak beer.
But as with the Obama administration, Team Trump seems to be paying little attention to the continued outflow of cutting-edge defense-related American knowhow to China – including to entities that are unquestionably controlled by the Chinese government. It’s unmistakably paying much less attention to these investments than to spending billions more to upgrade American military forces in East Asia – which of course could wind up facing Chinese weapons based on U.S. tech advances.
Today’s U.S.-China talks in Washington are due to be followed up later this summer by a session devoted to economics. Maybe by then, President Trump and his advisers will be pursuing the comprehensive, integrated approach that meeting the China challenge adequately requires?
RealityChek 