In this very important piece, New York Times tech columnist Shira Ovide adds up the threads of what Big Tech is saying about efforts to rein it in. Essentially, they are warning that doing anything negative to them will benefit China. These are the “glib talking points” she mentions.
What malarkey! Big Tech has been essential in helping China develop its technological base and continues to sell semiconductors and other high-tech products that are showing up in the hands of the People’s Liberation Army and the Orwellian surveillance state. American companies of many descriptions have allowed their IT systems to be honeycombed by China’s Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security, its two key agencies seeking control of cyberspace.
As I argue in “A Grand Strategy: Countering China, Taming Technology, and Restoring the Media,” it’s essential that the U.S. government makes it very clear that American companies have to maintain a critical distance from Beijing and cannot become patsies. They must be persuaded, or forced, to gradually become part of Team America.
