There appears to be a civil war in the Trump Administration over how to approach a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month. The “Wall Street wing” centered on Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is looking for China to announce it will buy a lot more American products, perhaps make some mild opening moves in a couple of sectors in its economy, and promise to do better at protecting American Intellectual Property. Such a fix would clearly benefit those forces in American society that benefit from a continuation of current patterns in U.S.-China relations. Wall Street is hooked on the big profits that some American companies are able to earn in China.
But the other “get tough” wing, centered on Pence, Navarro and Lighthizer, are warning that something very deep is happening in U.S.-China relations and they are right. President Xi has completely changed China’s direction at home and abroad, extending Chinese military clout, building a One Road, One Belt initiative, and targeting U.S. technology.
In recent months, the American have arrested a key official of China’s Ministry of State Security and extradited him to the United States for his role in attempting to steal fan blade technology from GE Aviation. It is the first time an official of China’s central government has been nabbed.
In another case, a Chinese state-owned enterprise was indicted along with three Taiwanese nationals for stealing DRAM technology from Micron Technology, based in Boise.
Across the board, alarm bells are going off about what China is doing internationally and in the United States. The latest is this report from a U.S.-Chinese review commission which warns, among other things, that the United States will be vulnerable to Chinese hacking and espionage if it relies on Chinese manufacturers of 5G telecommunications infrastructure. This next generation of communications will be 100 times faster than today’s Internet.
So the problems with China are deeply rooted and there is no way a quick diplomatic accord can solve them. If Trump opts for a “quick fix” announcement with Xi later this month, we can only hope that the intelligence and defense sectors in his government will keep up the pressure for more meaningful and lasting solutions.
