Everyone Wants to Crack Down on China—Except Silicon Valley
Two months before the presidential election, the US is bitterly divided—except about China. From both sides of the aisle, there are calls to disentangle the two countries’ high-tech economies.
Democrats and Republicans use strikingly similar language to condemn China. There is bipartisan support for recent steps by the Trump administration, including tough controls on telecom giant Huawei, restrictions on data flows from Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat, and “buy American” policies to limit dependence on supply chains from China.
“It is a fact that when you’re doing business with a Chinese company, you’re doing business with the Chinese Communist Party,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), a leading voice on China policy, told the National Defense University last December. China’s push for global standards in areas such as 5G technology, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing are part of an effort to “dominate the world,” warned Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia), a former telecom executive who has become the face of the Democratic party on China, in a speech last year.
