In coming hours, President Trump and President Xi will sit down in Osaka and address the many issues that separate them. It has become clear, as per this article in the New York Times, that the problems extend far beyond trade deficits. The trade war has become a technology war. The Chinese have stolen enough technology that they are developing it faster than we can, hence the shock of Huawei introducing 5G wireless technology before we could. (We didn’t really try.) We discover that there are espionage capabilities built in to its networks. And even the only other 5G networks in the world, made by Ericcson and Nokia, have significant components assembled in China, creating the chance that they could be compromised.
Elsewhere, we appear to be slamming export controls on semiconductors to Huawei and we appear to be cutting off our technology flow to China’s supercomputer industry. We have awakened to the fact that the Chinese government is using technology not only to suppress its own people and to support dictatorships around the world, but also to penetrate American cloud computing systems and capture massive amounts of data about Americans’ personal lives, as I outline in “The New Art of War: China’s Deep Strategy Inside the United States.”
Plus, there is a geopolitical component to the meeting. The North Korea issue hangs in the balance. China’s militarization of the South China Sea and its treatment of Hong Kong are real issues.
The pundits who think that Trump can cut a “deal” to address all these issues are just not plugged into reality. I’m sure the idea that a “deal” can solve problems is deeply rooted in Trump’s own non-thinking. But we need a long-term strategy to counter China’s inroads around the world and to develop our own technologies fast enough to keep pace with their state-run model. At the moment, we have deluded ourselves into thinking that we can force the Chinese to cut a “deal” that makes all the issues go away.
Trump does not think in terms of strategies, which is his critical failing before he even sits down with Xi, who is thinking in 10-year increments and beyond. As Pete Buttigieg rightly pointed out last night, we need to recognize the pattern of what China is achieving around the world and devise strategies to respond. It is simply impossible that one meeting in Osaka can get the job done.
