Publicly, the U.S. and China have turned down the heat recently on their relationship. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have both visited Beijing in recent weeks partly to improve communication between the two countries. “President Biden and I do not see the relationship between the U.S. and China through the frame of great-power conflict,” Yellen said at the end of her trip.
But the underlying reality is unchanged: The U.S. and China remain competitors for global supremacy. The two countries are great powers, and they are often in conflict.
Look at what’s happened since Yellen returned home on Sunday:
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U.S. officials announced that in the run-up to Blinken’s trip last month, hackers apparently affiliated with the Chinese government broke into the email accounts of top U.S. officials, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a noted critic of China’s policies. The spy balloon that flew over the U.S. early this year may have received more attention, but the hacking of high-level email accounts seems more belligerent.
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Biden administration officials appear close to announcing rules restricting American firms from investing in many cutting-edge Chinese technology companies. Advocates say the rules are intended to keep Americans from financing threats to U.S. national security. Biden’s aides have held off on announcing the policy, partly to avoid disrupting the recent diplomatic outreach. (Here is a Times story with more details.)
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The U.S. continues to enforce a strict set of restrictions intended to hamper China’s ability to produce advanced semiconductors. The Biden administration put the restrictions in place Oct. 7. “If you’d told me about these rules five years ago, I would’ve told you that’s an act of war — we’d have to be at war,” said C.J. Muse, a semiconductor expert at Evercore ISI, an investment advisory firm.
Choke points
Muse’s quotation comes from a new Times Magazine article by Alex Palmer, and I recommend making time to read it this weekend. The article explains how the Biden administration is trying to prevent China from getting access to cutting-edge semiconductors, which are vital to many digital technologies. By doing so, the U.S. hopes to slow China’s efforts to build advanced weapons, develop artificial intelligence and surveil its own citizens and people in other countries.
The U.S. believes it can succeed, Alex writes, because the semiconductor industry is “a web of mutual interdependence, spread all over the planet in highly specialized regions and companies, its feats made possible by supply chains of exceptional length and complexity.” The most advanced operations tend to be located in either the U.S. or its allies, such as Japan, the Netherlands and Taiwan — three governments that have all signed on to the Oct. 7 restrictions.
“The entire industry can only function with U.S. inputs,” Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts University, said. “In every…
2023-07-14 05:54:52
Article from www.nytimes.com
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