Confrontation the result of competition taken to excess at expense of cooperation

In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday, United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan once again elaborated on the current administration’s approach to relations with China. Underlining the idea that constructive engagement with China is in the national interest of the US, he reiterated the White House’s commitment to the “3C framework” for the US’ China policy — “collaborate, compete, confront”.

It is inspiring that the two sides are talking more about collaboration on such subjects as climate, fentanyl and military-to-military communications. But it is worth noting that the competitive aspects of bilateral relations may get unnecessarily confrontational as a result of Washington’s attempts to throttle China’s technological advancement.

To deny China access to advanced chips, the US has launched expansive embargoes on chips as well as related equipment, technology and investments. It is finalizing a new decree aimed at excluding Chinese users from US cloud services, which it is claimed enable the latter to access advanced chips otherwise unavailable to them to train artificial intelligence models.

Apparently, more is to come. US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has just identified one more “loophole” to plug. Also on Tuesday, at an Atlantic Council roundtable, the US commerce chief urged people to keep an eye on electric vehicles from China.

“Forget about trade. Forget about tariffs. Forget about the economics of it. I’m just talking national security,” said Raimondo. “A sophisticated EV, and then an autonomous vehicle, is filled with thousands of semiconductors and sensors. It collects a huge amount of information about the driver, the location of the vehicle, the surroundings of the vehicle.”

In her eyes, and those of others, EVs should be considered as part of the front line of the fight to frustrate Chinese technological progress. While taking advantage of all available alliances and partnerships to build “small yards with high fences”, the Joe Biden administration is making all-of-government efforts to make sure they are impenetrable fortresses.

On Wednesday, the US Department of Defense released an updated roster of “Chinese military companies”, operating directly or indirectly in the US. A dozen more names were added to the blacklist. Those firms allegedly constitute “national security risks” to the US.

But not only have such US companies as Nvidia suffered dearly as a result of these moves, so too have those of some of the US’ allies. Republic of Korea media have found a significant drop in their countries’ exports of semiconductors. The ROK semiconductor industry may become the “biggest victim” in the China-US competition, they said.

The ever-expansive interpretation of “national security” by the US is a damaging form of trade distortion, as well as national security risk. After all, over time, the negative feelings about each other accumulated through malicious competition will inevitably undermine cooperation and lead to confrontation.

Both Sullivan and Raimondo acknowledge the need and benefits of normal economic and trade exchanges with China. On that basis they should seek to make 3C a mnemonic in Washington, for “cooperation prevents competition from becoming confrontation”, which would otherwise lead to a 3D scenario of detriment, damage and disaster.