Short-sighted sabotage of China appears to be the American way — but what happens when Chinese technology recovers and surpasses our own?

© 2023 Peter Free

 

12 August 2023

 

 

Mike Whitney had been watching the United States' WTO rules-violating . . .

 

. . . sabotage of China for some time now:

 

 

The Biden administration has imposed a blockade on advanced computer chips headed for China. The action is expected to slow China’s technological development while inflicting serious damage on the broader economy.

 

The strategy has been widely praised by the media and foreign policy experts, but a growing number of analysts wonder if the plan could backfire.

 

[T]he blockade has dramatically impacted the bottom line of the major chip producers.

 

Still, the Biden administration is charging ahead blindly despite the protests of industry honchos or skeptical allies.

 

They’re not concerned about the loss of revenues for chip manufacturers or the impact their blockade could have on the industry as a whole. They are convinced that their onerous export controls will succeed and that, eventually, Beijing will submit to Washington’s diktat.

 

Most analysts, however, believe it is only a matter of time before China catches up and is able to produce its own advanced semiconductors.

 

And when China finally catches up, they will remember the countries that violated WTO rules and abandoned their “free market” principles in order to inflict as much pain on China as possible.

 

© 2023 Mike Whitney, For Biden, Thwarting China's Development Is Job One, Unz Review (09 August 2023)

 

 

A couple of points

 

China is not going to submit to anyone.

 

Anyone who indulges that ridiculous premise completely misreads China's post-1949 mindset.

 

And Chinese (unlike Americans) remember their history.

 

 

So . . .

 

What happens when China's 1.426 billion folks:

 

 

with (statistically likely) at least 4.3 times as many very bright people

 

as our 0.336 billion American population can brag about

 

and a spectacularly better Chinese record of actually getting people to think cleverly and produce

 

decide to rapidly accelerate the United States' decline into figurative darkness?

 

 

Are we 'gonna' fight back with our (by then) comparatively cave-lighting fire sticks?

 

 

The moral? — Adam Henry societal behavior is, almost always, eventually self-defeating

 

On the bright side, the United States is doing a splendid job of modeling the kind of parable-worthy deviltry that virtually everyone else hates and will, eventually, smite.

 

Seen against even a medium-term prospect, this neocon-neoliberal strategy seems remarkably foolish to me. But of course, it is consistent. And it, equally consistently, has not ever produced an iota of success at anything objectively and societally worthwhile.

 

We are on Belligerent Stupidity's roll.

 

Testy, creepy, arguably corrupt and virtually brain-dead President Biden is fully emblematic of this suicidal American trend.

 

An evil character cartoon would not be succinctly more illustrative of our flailing-failing status in the world.