My Take | The failure of US industrial policy and ‘China containment’ looms
- Washington has backed the wrong horse and is handicapping the fast ones in a futile ‘chip war’ to prevent Beijing’s technology advances
Every now and then, away from the public eye, people in high places let their guard down and speak the truth among friends and colleagues.
So it was with Anja Manuel, executive director of the Aspen Security Forum. She was addressing an elite bipartisan gathering on foreign policy in the United States last month.
And she just confirmed what many people in China have called America’s “Do a Tonya Harding”. (If you don’t get the reference, I will just let you google it yourself.)
Manuel said: “Let’s keep sight of the goal. The country that leads in technology tends to lead the world … The United States and our friends and allies have been the undisputed technology leaders for decades and now we have someone who is running the race and running really fast and that’s China.
“So the goal here should be for the US and our friends and allies to run faster in this race. There’s two ways to win a race: one, you hobble the other guy and Alan [Estevez, the undersecretary of commerce for industry and security] and his team are working on that. There’s another way to do it, which is to run faster ourselves.”
The first way is sometimes called “China containment”, the second is industrial policy. It’s worth noting that Manuel once worked as a special assistant to the current ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, who was back then the undersecretary for political affairs responsible for Asia policy.
