Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare
by
Edward Fishman
Published 25 Feb 2025
For one thing, Silicon Valley was becoming more and more important to both America’s and China’s military-industrial complexes. Complicating matters further was the Chinese government’s relationship to its country’s private sector: under an approach known as “military-civil fusion,” Beijing broke down barriers between the military and commercial domains. Just as intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer helped Chinese companies conquer world markets, they also accelerated China’s military modernization. Even private Chinese firms were legally bound to gather intelligence for the CCP and expected to collaborate with the military. In May 2015, Xi Jinping unveiled a new initiative that laid bare the growing indivisibility of China’s economic power, military might, and geopolitical ambitions.
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This was a provision that allowed the U.S. government to impose tariffs and other trade sanctions on foreign states that engaged in “unjustifiable” acts that burden or restrict U.S. commerce. Washington had rarely used these authorities since the creation of the WTO in 1995, but the law remained on the books. If the United States demonstrated that China’s theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfers met the criteria of Section 301, Lighthizer reasoned, the administration would be on strong legal footing to hit China with retaliatory tariffs. As soon as it became clear that Mnuchin and Ross had nothing to show for their hundred days of trade talks with the Chinese, Lighthizer persuaded Trump to approve a 301 investigation into China’s trade practices.
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Trump was chasing a trade deal with China that he envisioned as the crowning achievement of his presidency. Lighthizer and Liu He, China’s chief negotiator, seemed to be making progress. They were working on a 150-page agreement that—at least in draft form—would commit Beijing to revise its laws and regulations to better protect intellectual property and put an end to forced technology transfers. Lighthizer had come to respect Liu and trusted that he was serious about making a deal. Bringing down the hammer on Huawei would endanger that progress. It didn’t help that Trump was notoriously receptive to flattery—and Huawei, pulling out all the stops to avoid being slapped with export controls, wasn’t afraid to use it.
The Capitalist Manifesto
by
Johan Norberg
Published 14 Jun 2023
For ten years, the US–China Business Council has asked US companies how China’s intellectual property protection has changed over the past year. The proportion who experience an improvement since the previous year is on average 47 per cent during these ten years. The proportion who experience a deterioration is just 3 per cent. Forced technology transfers is a major concern but only ends up in twenty-fourth place among the twenty-seven biggest concerns that US companies experience in China.8 One of the best ways to deal with such abuses is to use World Trade Organization rules, because several issues about intellectual property and government subsidies are covered by WTO agreements.
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INDEX NB Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations Afghanistan, 160–61, 256 Africa, 30–35, 70, 267, 282 colonisation, 31 independence, 31–4 Sub-Saharan Africa, 30–31 AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), 170 Albania, 50 Algeria, 251 Alphabet, 179 AltaVista, 169, 174 Amazon, 169–72, 178–9 Amazon Prime, 179 Andersson, Magdalena, 8 Angola, 239 Annan, Kofi, 3 Ant Group, 227 AOL (America Online), 169–71, 174 Apple, 107–8, 159, 163, 169–73, 179 Apple TV, 179 Arab Spring, 215 Aristophanes, 73 Aristotle, 70 ARPA, 183–6 ARPANET, 184–5 Asia, 267, 282 Asp, Anette, 287 Attac, 2–3, 6 Australia, 11, 258, 267, 282, 285 Ayittey, George, 31 Bangladesh, 235 Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 144 Bankman-Fried, Sam, 153 Bao Tong, 212 Baran, Paul, 184, 186–7 Bastiat, Frédéric, 114 Beijing, China, 209 Belgium, 285 Berggren, Niclas, 62 Bergh, Andreas, 56, 103 Bezos, Jeff, 127 Biden, Joe, 76, 217 big companies, 141, 146–50, 176–7, 292 BioNTech, 177 biotechnology, 195 Björk, Nina, 263, 265, 272, 274–5, 278 BlackBerry, 174 Blair, Tony, 170 Blockbuster, 151 Blue Origin, 202 Bolivia, 47 Bolt, Beranek and Newman, 184 Bono, 4, 170 Botswana, 34–5 Boudreaux, Donald, 125 Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Lerner), 190 Brazil, 11, 29, 239, 258 Brexit, 116–18 Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (Graeber), 86, 98–9 business regulation, 139–41 Callaghan, James, 10 Canada, 102, 267, 283 Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty), 128 capital income, 130–31 Carbon Engineering, 255 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 29 Carlson, Tucker, 146 cars, 158 Carter, Jimmy, 10 Case Deaton, Anne, 108–11, 136 Castillo, Pedro, 30 Chávez, Hugo, 43, 135 child labour, 20 child mortality, 19–20, 20 Chile, 11, 29–30 China, 5, 7, 11, 19, 24–5, 76, 78–80, 83–4, 104–7, 204–29, 239, 258 agricultural productivity, 206–7, 209 Communist Party, 182, 204–9, 211–12, 215–18, 221–3, 226–8 deindustrialization, 84 economic development, 205–29 environmental issues, 251–3, 257 exports, 209–10 industrial policy, 205, 212–13, 217, 223–4, 296 innovation strategy, 182, 192 innovation, 226–8 poverty, 213, 214 Reform and Opening Up programme, 212 state-owned companies, 208 WTO and, 205, 209, 211 China’s Leaders (Shambaugh), 215 Chirac, Jacques, 191 Chomsky, Noam, 49 Christianity, 264–5 Churchill, Winston, 135 Clark, Daniel, 87 climate change, 5–7, 230–60, 293 carbon border tariffs, 258 carbon tax, 256–7, 259 energy supplies, 233–5, 253–6, 259 greenhouse gas emissions, 231, 233–5, 238, 240–41, 244, 253–9 see also environmental issues Climeworks, 255 Clinton, Hillary, 140 Coase, Ronald, 206 Cohen, Linda, 189 communism, 2, 25–6, 241–3, 290–91 Communist Manifesto, The, 1848, 2 community, 267 Compaq, 174 Concorde, 191 Confucianism, 22, 25 Congo-Brazzaville, 30 Congo, 239 consumer culture, 160–62, 287–8 Cook, Tim, 173 cooperation, 278–9 Coopersmith, Jonathan, 188–9 Corbyn, Jeremy, 43 coronavirus see Covid-19 pandemic Council of Economic Advisers, 147, 152 Covid-19 pandemic, 8, 21, 76–81, 223, 232–3, 270 Cowen, Tyler, 154 Credit Suisse, 132–3 crony capitalism, 139–40, 291 culture wars, 12–13 Czechoslovakia, 26 Dalits, 63–4 dating profiles, 154 ‘deaths of despair’, 7, 108–10, 136, 271, 293 Deaths of Despair (Deaton and Case Deaton), 136 Deaton, Angus, 19, 108–119, 136 DeepMind, 177 degrowth, 232–5, 254–5 ‘deindustrialization’, 83–5 democracies, 26, 37, 46 Deneen, Patrick, 262–5 Deng Xiaoping, 24, 46, 205, 212–13 Denmark, 91, 285 ‘dependency theory’, 27–8 Detroit, Michigan, 87–8 dictatorships, 11, 24, 29, 32, 42–8 Digital Equipment Corporation, 174 disability-adjusted life years (DALY), 237 dishonesty, 153–6 Disney, 178 Dominican Republic, 225 Easterlin, Richard, 279 ‘Easterlin paradox’, 279–80 Easterly, William, 39 Ecclesiazusae (Aristophanes), 73 Economic Freedom of the World index, 35–7 economic freedom, 35–42, 36, 57, 58–62, 58, 77–8 Economist, The, 179, 192 education, 20, 94 Energiewende, 191, 192–3 Engels, Friedrich, 2, 277, 290–91 Enlightenment, 73 entrepreneurship, 123–4, 128–9, 152–4 ‘welfare entrepreneurs’, 197 environmental issues, 236–41, 245–52, 293 agriculture, 239–40 air pollution, 237–8 biodiversity, 238–9, 249–50 deforestation, 239 health and, 236–8, 237 plastics, 247–8 prosperity and, 245–52, 249 transportation, 250–51, 254–5 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), 248, 252 Estonia, 26 Ethiopia, 277 Europe, 22, 239, 267, 282 European Centre for International Political Economy, 79 European Union (EU), 4, 68, 79, 116, 164, 258–9 Everybody Lies (Stephens-Davidowitz), 155 Facebook, 163, 167–75, 179–80 Fallon, Brad, 192 famine, 29 Fanjul, Alfonso and José, 140 fascism, 75 Federal Communications Decency Act (USA), 174 Feldt, Kjell-Olof, 11 feudalism, 73, 75 Financial Fiasco (Norberg), 142 financial markets, 141–3 Financial Times, 8, 267 Finland, 76, 78, 268, 285 Foodora, 102 Forbes’ list, 129–30 forced technology transfers, 211 Foroohar, Rana, 8 Fortune 500 list, 151 Fortune magazine, 169 France, 79–80, 97, 159, 192, 281, 285 Fraser Institute, 35 free markets, 2–4, 6, 23, 58–62, 65–82, 83, 290–97 happiness and, 279–89, 282, 284, 286 human values and, 261–89 Friedman, Thomas, 204 ‘friendshoring’, 79 Friendster, 170 GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft), 169–70 Gallup World Poll, 267 Gandhi, Indira, 245 Gapminder, 18 Gates, Bill, 124–7, 274 GDP (Gross Domestic Product), 5, 23, 26, 33, 35, 49–56 General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR), 164 generosity, 274–7 Georgia, 26, 215 Germany, 26, 84, 97, 101, 192–3, 196, 268 gig economy, 101–3 Gingrich, Newt, 191–2 Gini coefficient, 132 global financial crisis, 2008, 4–5, 142–3 global supply chains, 41–2, 58–61, 76, 81 Global Thermostat, 255 global warming see climate change globalization, 3–8, 17, 19, 80, 103–10, 117 Google, 163, 169–73, 179–80 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 215 Graeber, David, 86, 98–9 Grafström, Jonas, 240 Greece, 26, 254 Green Revolution, 239–40 green technology, 243, 251–5 Greider, Göran, 50, 241 growth, 49–57 degrowth, 232–5, 254–5 government and, 55–6 health and, 52–3 poverty and, 53–4 Guangdong, China, 207–8 Guardian, 3, 169 Halldorf, Joel, 262, 265 happiness, 279–89, 282, 284, 286 Hawkins Family Farm, 140 Hawkins, Zach, 140 Hayden, Brian, 161 Hayek, Friedrich, 66 Helm, Dieter, 193 Henrekson, Magnus, 56 Hertz, Noreena, 261, 262, 265, 268, 272, 274–5, 278 Hillbilly Elegy (Vance), 87 Hinduism, 22, 25 Hong Kong, 23, 205, 207 Horwitz, Steven, 294 housing market, 131, 142–3, 208–9 How China Became Capitalist (Wang and Coase), 206 How Innovation Works (Ridley), 188 Hsieh, Chang-Tai, 148–9 Hu Jintao, 215–16 Hugo, Victor, 25 Hume, David, 284 Hungary, 26, 283 IBM, 151 Iceland, 285 IKEA, 119, 141, 147 illiteracy, 20, 20 ‘import substitution’, 27–8 In Defence of Global Capitalism (Norberg), 3, 17, 33, 38, 42, 146, 151, 156, 169, 204, 214, 230–31 income, 22, 55, 88–96, 95, 134–5, 285, 291 low-income earners, 136–8 minimum wage, 90 wage stagnation, 89, 92–3 see also inequality India, 11, 24–5, 63–4, 70, 234, 239, 251, 258 caste system, 63–4 Indonesia, 239 industrial policy, 182, 188–203 Industrial Revolution, 22 inequality, 7, 27, 42, 54–5, 110, 131–8, 133, 285–7 happiness inequality, 131–2 income, 285–7 life expectancy and, 136–8 infant mortality, 19–20, 235, 291 Infineon, 196 inflation, 8, 10–11, 69 innovation, 65–6, 122–3, 125, 151, 181–203 government policy and, 181–203 innovation shadow, 169, 176 prizes and, 199 research, 199–200 subsidies and grants, 196–7 Instagram, 168, 177 integrity, 164 intellectual property, 41, 210–11 International Disaster Database, 235 International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 238 internet, 162–8, 183–7 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), 231 iPhone, 107–8, 156, 159 Iran, 220 Iraq, 251 Ireland, 285 Italy, 97, 285 Jackson, Jesse, 43 Jacobs, A.
Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order
by
Bruno Maçães
Published 1 Feb 2019
To gain a foothold in an overseas market, international automakers generally prefer direct exports, or to set up wholly-owned corporations. The establishment of joint ventures has often been a compromise for the foreign firms, and indicates strong negotiating power on the part of the host country—in this case China—which sees it as a way to force technology transfers. In other words, China deliberately avoided both the Mexican and the Korean models of subordination to large foreign firms or autonomous national development, opting to integrate its automobile industry in global value chains while preserving control over the process. Revealingly, in China enterprises owned by the central government all set up international joint ventures, while national car-makers are all private companies.20 The Belt and Road takes this strategy one step further.
Vassal State
by
Angus Hanton
Published 25 Mar 2024
For some years, both Britain and the US relied on the Chinese telecoms giant to provide some of their underpinning mobile phone network hardware. And, for even longer, there have been serious concerns about Chinese espionage, and specifically the loss of intellectual property from both British and American industry to Chinese hacking, in accordance with China’s policy of ‘forced technology transfer’ (FFT). This risk, which was real, was routinely considered but did not prevent the buying of Chinese products for critical infrastructure in both countries. Then, suddenly, things changed. Elected on a policy of trade protectionism with particularly critical views on China, Donald Trump erected trade barriers against America’s Far Eastern rival.
Owning the Sun
by
Alexander Zaitchik
Published 7 Jan 2022
More than just core business assets, it describes these as issues of national security requiring the assistance of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. From the perspective of the USTR, blocking north-south medical tech transfer is not an unfortunate by-product of protecting trade secrets; it is an integral part of national security and industrial strategy. In a section of the Special 301 Report called “Forced Technology Transfer, Indigenous Innovation, and Preferences for Indigenous IP,” the government highlights its displeasure with technology-transfer requirements deceptively “styled as means to incentivize domestic ‘indigenous innovation,’” but which “put valuable trade secrets at risk of exposure.” As an example, the report cites cases of Indonesia and India conditioning foreign companies’ right to market pharmaceuticals “upon the transfer of technology to Indonesian entities or upon partial manufacture in Indonesia.”
MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them
by
Nouriel Roubini
Published 17 Oct 2022
The litany includes currency manipulation that kept China’s currency weak, a ploy that bestowed a competitive advantage on exports as trade surpluses mounted: “For many years, China has pursued industrial policies and unfair trade practices—including dumping, discriminatory non-tariff barriers, forced technology transfer, overcapacity, and industrial subsidies—that champion Chinese firms and make it impossible for many United States firms to compete on a level playing field.”18 Overall, trade flourished from 1945 until the start of this century, fostering a world of relative peace and prosperity. Countries that welcomed trade flourished.
Open: The Story of Human Progress
by
Johan Norberg
Published 14 Sep 2020
In the US-China Business Council’s member surveys since 2011, between 40 and 50 per cent of American businesses say that China’s protection of intellectual property rights has improved in the past year, every year. The share who thinks it deteriorated is in the very low single digits every year. Forced technology transfers is a concern, but only ranks as 24 out of 27 top challenges US companies face in China.61 China also has more trade barriers than rich countries. This is a serious problem especially for the Chinese. It means that their citizens are denied access to better and cheaper goods from other places, and this reduces the productivity specialization creates, and the purchasing power that would have created a demand for new goods and services.
Four Battlegrounds
by
Paul Scharre
Published 18 Jan 2023
In Beijing’s Wangfujing shopping district, the two-story Apple store was packed with customers. Across the street, the much smaller Huawei store was nearly empty. While there have undoubtedly been cases where U.S. firms have stumbled in the China market, the Chinese government’s systemic protectionist policies of state subsidies, support for “national champions,” forced technology transfer, forced joint ventures for foreign firms, intellectual property theft, and outright bans on some foreign firms have also played a major role in bolstering China’s tech industry. As if to drive home the strength of China’s tech sector, one day as I was leaving my hotel the elevator door opened and I was met with a robot.
Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology
by
Anu Bradford
Published 25 Sep 2023
. & Emerging Tech., Outline of the People’s Republic of China 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035 (2021), https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/t0284_14th_Five_Year_Plan_EN.pdf. 37.Agatha Kratz & Janka Oertel, Eur. Council on Foreign Rel., Home Advantage: How China’s Protected Market Threatens Europe’s Economic Power 2–3, 6–7 (2021), https://ecfr.eu/wp-content/uploads/Home-advantage-How-Chinas-protected-market-threatens-Europes-economic-power.pdf. 38.Alan O. Sykes, The Law and Economics of “Forced” Technology Transfer (FTT) and Its Implications for Trade and Investment Policy (and the U.S.–China Trade War), 13 J. Legal Analysis 127, 128–129 (2021). 39.Kratz & Oertel, Eur. Council on Foreign Rel., supra note 37, at 2–3. 40.David Wolf, Why Buy the Hardware When China Is Getting the IP for Free?, Foreign Pol’y (Apr. 24, 2015), https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/24/ibm-technology-transfer-china-virginia-rometty-strategy-lenovo-huawei-it/. 41.Paul Mozur, IBM Venture with China Stirs Concerns, N.Y.