A seismic shot across the bow, Vice President Mike Pence’s Oct. 4 speech on U.S.-China policy garnered surprisingly little coverage. But historians may well mark it as a significant turning point in great power relations. Pence’s address to the Hudson Institute heralded a dramatic shift in America’s approach to Beijing. He clearly and starkly announced that America is initiating a dramatic decoupling from a growing rival.
There’s a strong economic basis for the shift. China’s rise has been funded in large part by excessive reliance on America’s consumers. The U.S. racks up trade deficits with China that amount to hundreds of billions annually. And this massive trade debt has already cost the U.S. 3.4 million jobs since 2001.
The issue now transcends jobs, though, and runs to national security concerns as well. In September, the Pentagon released a study on the troubling status of America’s defense industrial base, including multiple instances of dependence on China for key military hardware. The Defense Department expressed particular concern over “single points of failure,” with many remaining U.S. producers of critical defense materials on the verge of shutting down. The Pentagon notes that 90 percent of worldwide printed circuit board production is now located in Asia — predominantly in China. In contrast, America’s remaining printed circuit board production is failing to maintain state-of-the-art capability.
In addition to electronics, the Pentagon has also cataloged U.S. dependency on China for such critical components as carbon fibers, solid rocket materials, machine tools, body armor, titanium, beryllium, and explosives.
This should come as little surprise to keen observers of America’s defense industrial strength. And the Trump administration intimated as much last year in a National Security Strategy that highlighted the “erosion of American manufacturing” alongside other diverse challenges like rogue nations, porous borders, criminal cartels, and terror groups.
The Trump administration is the first to openly acknowledge China’s hostility, however. Where President Bill Clinton championed Beijing as a “partner,” and President Barack Obama accepted China as a competitor, the Trump administration is now boldly declaring Beijing a national security threat.
Earlier this year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative offered a stern rebuke of the Clinton administration’s China policy, saying that the United States “erred” in supporting China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, because “WTO rules are not sufficient to constrain China’s market-distorting behavior.”
As Pence noted, China has used an arsenal of “tariffs, quotas, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and industrial subsidies” to bolster its manufacturing base at America’s expense.
More chilling, however, is Beijing’s wider global strategy. Pence said China is intent on controlling 90 percent of the world’s most advanced industries, including robotics, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. And Chinese security agencies have engaged in “wholesale theft of American technology.”
Beijing has also “prioritized capabilities to erode America’s military advantages … to prevent us from coming to the aid of our allies.” Chinese ships already patrol Japan’s Senkaku Islands. And Beijing has deployed advanced anti-ship and anti-air missiles on artificial islands constructed in the South China Sea.
China is not suited to be a global leader. It has built an unparalleled surveillance state that controls “virtually every facet of human life,” and its regime directs frequent persecution against Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims. China also uses “debt diplomacy” to exert pressure and influence upon struggling nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
If America wants to avoid a dystopian future, it must challenge China’s unfettered rise to great power status. It would be the height of naivety for the United States to turn a blind eye toward Beijing’s increasingly aggressive behavior.
The world is confronted with innumerable challenges. But China’s predatory economic behavior and military expansion merit a focused and comprehensive response. The White House is wisely checking China’s mercantilist behavior and boosting investment in defense capabilities. It’s also restricting what it calls “weaponized incoming investment” in U.S. companies and intellectual property.
These are sensible — and overdue — responses to a historic international challenge. Countries around the world prefer America’s global leadership over the potential dominance of China’s authoritarian government. As such, Pence’s speech will be seen as a clear moment when a democratic nation acted sensibly to check the rise of a superpower challenge that is wrong for America and wrong for the world.
Michael Stumo is CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America.
