{Editor’s Note: Amid the U.S. presidential election, Xinhua News Agency has published a commentary series titled “Spotlight on the U.S. Election.” Continue reading
US-China Relations - 19. page
Xinhua Commentary: US Trade Restrictions Have Ruined ASML and the Global Industrial Chain
Xinhua News Agency published a commentary on ASML’s recent drop in stock price. Below are some key excerpts from the article.
Due to lower-than-expected orders and a downgraded performance outlook, Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML recently experienced a sharp decline in its stock price, losing its title as Europe’s most valuable tech company. Many market analysts believe that U.S. restrictions are key drivers behind ASML’s drop in orders, asserting that U.S. hegemonic actions are detrimental to global industrial development and free trade.
It is a common tactic for the U.S. to use “national security” as a pretext to suppress foreign companies and “sanctions” to maintain its competitiveness. The U.S. presents itself as a “defender of free trade,” but it follows “market rules” at will. When leading in technology and holding a strong market position, it champions “free competition.” When other nations make significant technological advances that could challenge its economic and technological dominance, it disregards “market rules,” instead resorting to extreme measures and forming alliances to relentlessly suppress foreign enterprises, including those of its allies.
In the 1980s, when Japan’s high-tech sector posed a challenge to the U.S., the U.S. imposed anti-dumping tariffs and sanctioned companies like Toshiba. The U.S. “long-arm jurisdiction” tactics dismantled prominent French manufacturer Alstom. Targeting India’s steel, Canada’s lumber, and Brazilian agricultural products, the U.S. has employed a range of non-market strategies. It also adds more foreign companies to export control lists and enacts the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, to attract more semiconductor and renewable energy firms to invest and build facilities in the U.S., and block other countries’ products from entering the U.S. market. The U.S. has also targeted electric vehicles (EVs), imposing a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs and threatening to ban Chinese software and hardware in networked and autonomous vehicles on American roads. Recently, the U.S. government is even considering restricting sales of advanced AI chips to specific countries, particularly in the Gulf region. These policies severely disrupt business operations, hinder market expectations, and obstruct normal industry growth.
The U.S.’s “freedom” of arbitrarily wielding power comes at the cost of the “unfreedom” faced by ASML and other international companies.
Source: Xinhua, October 19, 2024
http://www.news.cn/20241019/1c9f5f13984e4e63bfbbad7171992f3c/c.html
RFI Chinese: Poll Shows Americans’ Favorability Towards China Hits Record Low
Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that, Chicago Council on Global Affairs just released its new poll results on China favorability. Poll questions are rated from 0 to 100, and the average score was 26, down from 32 in 2022 – the lowest since the organization began conducting surveys in 1978, before the United States and China established diplomatic relations. However, Americans do not want the competition between the two countries to turn into war. The American public’s primary concern for bilateral relations is to avoid military conflicts.
More than half (56 percent) of Americans surveyed believe that trade between the two countries weakens U.S. national security, and 79 percent support banning U.S. companies from selling sensitive high-tech products to China, up from 71 percent three years ago. Around 55 percent of Americans currently support increasing tariffs on Chinese products, down from 62 percent in 2021. Even as the U.S. political situation becomes increasingly polarized, data shows that surveyed Republicans and Democrats are consistent in their negative attitudes toward China. However, the two parties differ on how to formulate policies to deal with the threat from China.
Source: RFI Chinese, October 25, 2024
https://tinyurl.com/5sp87c67
CCP Leverages U.S. Legal System to Counter U.S. – Trying to Stop Sanctions and Criticism
Voice of America (VOA) reported that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is leveraging the U.S. legal system, using the law as “both a sword to attack opponents and a shield to protect its interests.”
Chinese drone manufacturer DJI filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) on October 18, alleging that DOD’s inclusion of the company on the list of companies cooperating with Beijing’s military was erroneous and had caused significant financial losses. China’s semiconductor firm, AMEC, filed a similar lawsuit in the U.S. on August 16. Previously, Chinese companies Xiaomi and Hesai successfully removed themselves from the list by suing DOD. Analysts told VOA that these Chinese companies’ success was not due to a lack of military involvement, but because they exploited loopholes in the U.S. Administrative Procedure Act.
In addition, the CCP can use its state power and resources to hire top-tier U.S. law firms to start legal battles to coerce or even silence organizations or individuals from criticizing it.
Li Rui, Mao Zedong’s former secretary and a senior member of the CCP, left behind diaries detailing the inner workings of the party and his own views. According to his wishes, his daughter, Li Nanyang, handed over the diaries to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. However, Li Rui’s widow, Zhang Yuzhen, filed a lawsuit in Beijing in April 2019 to reclaim the diaries (so that she could take them back to China) and won the case. Stanford University filed a countersuit in the U.S. This ongoing legal battle has lasted for over five years and required Stanford, Li Nanyang, and her attorney’s law firm to spend thousands of hours. Zhang Yuzhen hired four different law firms, three of which are among the largest in the U.S. Li Nanyang’s attorney pointed out that Zhang would not be able to hire those U.S. attorneys on her own, which Zhang neither confirmed nor denied.
Anna Puglisi, a former senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, published a scholarly paper in May 2024 titled “How China’s Hybrid Economy Distorts Competition.” The paper highlighted the CCP’s direct or indirect relationship with companies like BGI Genomics and MGI Tech, and how China uses market access to protect its own global companies and undermine other global players. In June and July of this year, Puglisi received letters from prominent U.S. law firms hired by BGI and MGI, accusing her of defamation and demanding that she and Georgetown University retract the paper and cease related analysis.
In May 2019, Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a nonprofit based in Washington, testified during a congressional hearing on transportation and infrastructure, stating that BYD and CRRC, two Chinese companies, are state-owned and state-supported, and had begun securing lucrative contracts funded by U.S. taxpayers to provide rail transit vehicles and electric buses for major U.S. cities. He warned that this trend would systematically undermine the competitive landscape of the U.S. locomotive and vehicle manufacturing industries. BYD filed a defamation lawsuit against AAM and several of its employees. The lawsuit dragged on for nearly two years, with several dismissals and unsuccessful appeals, until October 2022, when the Supreme Court refused to hear BYD’s appeal, ruling that BYD failed to prove that AAM’s statements were defamatory. However, the chilling effect of the lawsuit became apparent when AAM’s insurance company, Hartford, partially canceled AAM’s insurance in April 2021.
Source: VOA, October 23, 2024
https://www.voachinese.com/a/ccp-us-law-repression-20241020/7817608.html
Xinhua Commentary: US Struggles in Rebuilding Its Manufacturing Industry
Xinhua News Agency published a commentary on the U.S.’ failing to integrate global warming efforts in bringing manufacture businesses back to China.
Recently, Boeing announced plans to cut approximately 17,000 jobs globally, which stands in stark contrast to the high demand for global aviation manufacturing. This incident reflects several issues within American manufacturing: high labor costs, a shortage of skilled technical workers, and supply chain disruptions.
Since the 1960s, the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing has sparked widespread discussion about America’s “deindustrialization.” To address this problem, following the 2008 global financial crisis, various policies were introduced to revitalize the manufacturing industry, from Obama’s “reindustrialization” to Trump’s “America First” and now Biden’s “supply chain resilience” policy.
During this process, the U.S. has pursued protectionist trade policies and “long-arm jurisdiction” measures to forcibly bring manufacturing back. These actions have led to rising production costs, pressure on fiscal expenditure, high inflation, and damage to the supply chain, resulting in further decline of already hollowed-out industries.
According to a recent survey by the Financial Times, over two years into the Biden administration’s ambitious plan to reshore manufacturing, many projects, particularly in the clean technology and semiconductor sectors, are struggling to get off the ground.
Source: Xinhua, October 17, 2024
http://www.xinhuanet.com/20241017/b99368fad2d74d4b856b4e647b3bbaff/c.html
RFI Chinese: US May Impose Tariffs on Solar Panels from Four Southeast Asian Countries
Radio France Internationale (RFI) Chinese Edition recently reported that the United States may impose new tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian countries. These U.S. domestic manufacturers see competition from cheap imports from Chinese companies operating in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia as a threat to the Biden administration’s goal of promoting local production of clean energy technologies needed to combat climate change.
The American Solar Manufacturing Trade Council Alliance (AASMTC) stated in a petition to the U.S. government that Chinese manufacturers operating in the four Southeast Asian countries have received generous subsidies from the governments of these countries, including cheap financing, electricity and land tax exemptions, etc. These Chinese manufacturers also received support through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, according to AASMTC. The U.S. Commerce Department decided to consider the impact of cross-border subsidies for the first time.
The United States has already imposed a series of tariffs on solar imports. Not all U.S. manufacturers want to impose new tariffs on solar imports, as some U.S. companies assemble panels with low-cost solar cells from Southeast Asia.
Source: RFI Chinese, September 30, 2024
https://tinyurl.com/yh2pukn2
Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Lays Down Four “Red Lines” That U.S. Should Not Cross
According to the website of the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., China’s Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng delivered a keynote speech at the Vision China event on Sep 12. He stated that China has drawn four “red lines” [that the U.S. should not cross]. These particularly sensitive areas for the CCP are:
- Taiwan,
- (China’s record on) democracy and human rights,
- (China’s institutional) path and system, and
- (China’s) right (to economic development).
Xie said that, among these, the Taiwan question is the “most paramount in China-US relations and must not be crossed.”
He stated that “the notion of ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ is a fallacy. China’s political system and development path are non-negotiable, and the legitimate rights of the Chinese people to have a better life must not be deprived.”
Radio France International reported that Xie also remarked that the attempt to completely decouple China and the U.S. is a “fantasy,” and viewing each other as new Cold War rivals is the “greatest strategic misjudgment of the 21st century.” He warned that a conflict between China and the U.S. would be an “unbearable burden for the world.”
He stated that “no conflict, no confrontation” is the bottom line for both sides to uphold.
Source: Radio France Internation, September 13, 2024
https://www.rfi.fr/cn/中国/20240913-中国对美划出四道红线-台湾，人权，制度与发展权
Xinhua: Starlink Helps US Navy Increase Internet Speed Twentyfold
Xinhua recently reported that the U.S. Navy will soon begin the full-scale deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. This will provide high-speed internet connections to all its bases and ships. Satellite internet connectivity is expected to facilitate naval operational improvements. Currently the U.S. Navy uses Department of Defense satellites for connectivity. However, the six geostationary satellites for Internet access provide slow connection speeds. To achieve faster speeds, the U.S. Navy recently began using Starlink and Britain’s Eutelsat OneWeb. Low-Earth orbit satellites can improve the Navy’s connectivity capabilities, with on-ship speeds expected to reach about 1Gbps. This new capability is called Sailor Edge Afloat and Ashore (SEA2) by the U.S. Department of Defense. SEA2 operates 20 times faster than any other satellite before. It’s worth noting that SEA2 received the cybersecurity certification that has never been issued to such services before. Rob Wolborsky, Chief Engineer at U.S. Information Warfare Systems Command, stated that “this is a once-in-a-lifetime transition, and we’re working to deliver it to the fleets as quickly and aggressively as possible.”
During the COVID-19 period, the U.S. Navy recognized the need for increased connectivity. Due to pandemic-era restrictions, ships were not allowed to dock in many ports across the globe, cutting them off from the rest of the world. The U.S. Navy is likely to receive Starlink access through the StarShield program, which was established under a contract signed last year between the Department of Defense and SpaceX to provide satellite Internet connections to the U.S. Armed Forces.
Source: Xinhua, September 5, 2024
http://www.xinhuanet.com/milpro/20240905/dc67d657e8ba43bd80fb5955475ffd5e/c.html