At last, someone at the New York Times is beginning to ask the right questions. In this article, Andrew Ross Sorkin, who usually writes about the glam world of finance, notes that the United States is “woefully–even disgracefully–behind” Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that has been in the news. I have been arguing that the Chinese have surprised us with their 5G capability and that they are seeking to surprise us on technology after technology. Sorkin, for the first time in the august pages of the Grey Lady, argues we have to do something about it rather than simply keeping Huawei’s 5G technology out of the United States. “The United States,” he writes, “needs a meaningful strategy to lead the world in next-generation wireless technology–a kind of Manhattan project for the future of connectivity.”
He quotes from a report written by the Defense Innovation Board, which advises the Defense Department. It had so far escaped my attention. “The country that owns 5G will own many of these (future) innovations and set the standards for the rest of the world,” it wrote. “That country is currently not likely to be the United States.”
One of the board’s recommendations is that the Pentagon share its low-band spectrum to speed the commercial development of 5G technology. But that alone won’t do the trick. “If the United States is going to lead the world, Washington needs to think hard about the incentives it provides companies–not only for research and development, where we are still leading, but also for manufacturing the technology that is in our national interest to control.
Sorkin concludes by saying such an approach “requires more then the Band-Aid solution that is a trade deal or a blacklist. It requires a new strategy.”
That’s exactly what I argue in “The New Art of War: China’s Deep Strategy Inside the United States.” I devote an entire chapter to the need for the United States to develop a technology policy or a set of policies that will prevent future Huawei shocks. The Chinese government has been very public about its intentions in the fields of artificial intelligence, supercomputing, quantum computing, drones, energy storage and other fields. There is no way the Trump administration can negotiate an end to these technology ambitions. We have to get more serious about maintaining our lead, or we will lose that lead. And there is no question but that China wants to use these advanced technologies in its military. We have been warned, and now the New York Times seems to be recognizing it.
