Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo
Workers at a semiconductor production facility for Renesas Electronics, May 2020, in Beijing
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is out with an 88-page report, which has gotten respectful attention in the media, pointing out that “full decoupling” of the U.S. from China would cost gazillions of U.S. jobs and extensive corporate income in industries that run the gamut from aircraft to medical devices to semiconductors.
The argument is a textbook case of the rhetorical device known as the “straw man.” Nobody is proposing a “full decoupling” in which the U.S. breaks off all economic links.
What the U.S. is belatedly conducting, thanks to the Biden administration, is a full strategic review of the U.S.-China relationship. Where have we let supply chains become too dependent on Beijing? Where are China’s economic policies predatory? Where do we need industrial policies of our own, both to recapture important industries lost to China’s mercantilist policies, and to target emerging ones?
Obviously, we can and should reset the terms of U.S.-China commerce and America’s own domestic policies without breaking all links. The members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are not exactly disinterested parties, nor do they come to this debate with clean hands.
American companies that produce in China for re-export to the U.S. profit by taking advantage of China’s near slave labor and filthy environmental conditions, both of which would be illegal in the U.S. Other U.S. companies that share critical technology as part of carrot-and-stick commercial deals with Chinese “partners” are selling out America’s technical patrimony.
It’s also rather incautious of the report to mention the threat to semiconductors, of all industries. American manufacturers are now suffering a shortage of semiconductors, because this is an epic case of a sector that we allowed excessively to migrate offshore.
The Chamber’s report is useful in one unintended respect. It’s a vivid reminder of why American governments have been so slow to reassess our China relationship. The U.S. as a nation may be getting screwed, but powerful U.S. corporations are getting rich.
