This article by Ana Swanson, which appeared on the front page of the Times on Sunday (in the middle of summer), was one of the most important pieces the Times has done on the China issue. The headline in the print edition was, “Red Scare Grows in Washington, Now With China as Boogeyman.” Let’s parse that to start with. The term “red scare” is a throwback to the days of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. I think it is way premature to use that phrase to describe America’s current worries about China. And to say China is a “boogeyman” suggests that people are creating an artificial scapegoat. So the headline is loaded.
But the loading goes both ways. Steve Bannon does not know what he’s talking about when he says, “There are two systems that are incompatible. One side is going to win and one side is going to lose.” Yes, the two systems are profoundly different. But the truth is that we are stuck in a messy embrace with China, which is partly good and which is partly war-like. The war-like side, which is the subject of my book, “The New Art of War: China’s Deep Strategy Inside the United States.” is about the hard edge of what China is doing inside the United States. We can respond to that without having to destroy the Chinese Communist Party, which is impossible in our lifetimes. We can respond to that without “decoupling” the two economies, which are deeply interwoven. It would take at least 10 years to unwind it, if indeed that were possible at all.
I think the most important point that Ms. Swanson makes is “there is little agreement on what America can or should do” in response to the China worries. Boom! There it is in the New York Times. The Americans are confused. We have not come to grips with how to respond to aspects of China’s behavior that we do not like.
I argue that we have to start with the things we can control, not the things we cannot control. It is useless to ask the Chinese government to not target our advanced technologies and spend billions of dollars in an attempt to leapfrog us. That’s like being in the fourth quarter of a game of football that you are losing 30-0 and suddenly saying to the winning side, “Hey, you guys, cut that out. Stop playing so well.”
The place to start is regaining control of our Information Technology systems, which the Chinese have deeply penetrated. That’s key to not only national security but also to controlling our technology. If a technology is linked to the Internet, the Chinese can get it. They also are stealing hundreds of millions of pieces of data about Americans, which we assume they are studying and collating.
We have to do a better job on insider threats, both in government institutions and in Corporate America.
And we have to adopt policies that spur more rapid development of the technologies where the Chinese may have an advantage such as Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, drones, and on and on. Where is the American version of 5G wireless communications? Why don’t we have a competitive product? We have hard work to do here to create strategies that include governments, businesses, and universities and research institutes to accelerate our pace of commercialization.
None of those policies involve military conflict or a mass pogrom against Chinese-Americans. It’s time to define a way we Americans can have a real China debate without the use of inflammatory words that once again polarize and paralyze us.
