Michael Schuman: “In an April phone conversation, Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a stern admonition to President Joe Biden. Washington’s ban on the export of American advanced microchips and other sanctions designed “to suppress China’s trade and technology development” are “creating risks.” If Biden “is adamant on containing China’s high-tech development,” the official Chinese readout went on, Beijing “is not going to sit back and watch.”
Biden has been robust in his response. The ban, he told Xi, was necessary to protect American national security. “He said, ‘Why?’” Biden recently recounted. “I said, ‘Because you use it for all the wrong reasons, so you’re not going to get those advanced computer chips.’”
Imagine for a moment how humiliating that exchange must have been for Xi Jinping. Xi is not supposed to suffer such indignities. His propaganda machine portrays him as an all-knowing sage who will lead China to a new era of global greatness. His word is practically law, and such a warning as he gave Biden would have induced fear and obedience among his compatriots. Yet the American leader not only stood firm; he even went on to lecture the Chinese dictator.
Xi is only too aware that the United States stands in the way of his grand ambitions for Chinese hegemony. His desperate desire to break free from American global power motivates much of his policy: his partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his campaign for economic self-reliance, the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal. As yet, though, China can’t shake off Washington’s sway. China still needs the dollar, American capital, and the U.S. global-security system to sustain its own rise.
And perhaps nothing encapsulates Xi’s predicament better than the microchip. Xi needs the smallest and fastest chips to fulfill his dream of transforming China into a technology powerhouse. But China doesn’t make them. Nor does China make the immensely complex equipment needed to manufacture them. For that, Xi must rely on the U.S. and its allies—and their willingness to share the technology.”
Interestingly all of these ‘advantages’ the article claims the U.S. enjoys are actually Taiwanese – a nation next door to Xi, and one that Xi has laid claim to.
In one hour China could destroy 100% of these seeming advantages by invading Taiwan – something the current administration would simply look the other way over.
Xi knows this. We know this. The Atlantic apparently can’t see past it’s liberal blinders enough to see that this advantage is nothing more than the Emperor’s clothes. Not surprised.
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Michael Schuman: “In an April phone conversation, Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a stern admonition to President Joe Biden. Washington’s ban on the export of American advanced microchips and other sanctions designed “to suppress China’s trade and technology development” are “creating risks.” If Biden “is adamant on containing China’s high-tech development,” the official Chinese readout went on, Beijing “is not going to sit back and watch.”
Biden has been robust in his response. The ban, he told Xi, was necessary to protect American national security. “He said, ‘Why?’” Biden recently recounted. “I said, ‘Because you use it for all the wrong reasons, so you’re not going to get those advanced computer chips.’”
Imagine for a moment how humiliating that exchange must have been for Xi Jinping. Xi is not supposed to suffer such indignities. His propaganda machine portrays him as an all-knowing sage who will lead China to a new era of global greatness. His word is practically law, and such a warning as he gave Biden would have induced fear and obedience among his compatriots. Yet the American leader not only stood firm; he even went on to lecture the Chinese dictator.
Xi is only too aware that the United States stands in the way of his grand ambitions for Chinese hegemony. His desperate desire to break free from American global power motivates much of his policy: his partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his campaign for economic self-reliance, the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal. As yet, though, China can’t shake off Washington’s sway. China still needs the dollar, American capital, and the U.S. global-security system to sustain its own rise.
And perhaps nothing encapsulates Xi’s predicament better than the microchip. Xi needs the smallest and fastest chips to fulfill his dream of transforming China into a technology powerhouse. But China doesn’t make them. Nor does China make the immensely complex equipment needed to manufacture them. For that, Xi must rely on the U.S. and its allies—and their willingness to share the technology.”
Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/Oli2t4f1](https://theatln.tc/Oli2t4f1)
Interestingly all of these ‘advantages’ the article claims the U.S. enjoys are actually Taiwanese – a nation next door to Xi, and one that Xi has laid claim to.
In one hour China could destroy 100% of these seeming advantages by invading Taiwan – something the current administration would simply look the other way over.
Xi knows this. We know this. The Atlantic apparently can’t see past it’s liberal blinders enough to see that this advantage is nothing more than the Emperor’s clothes. Not surprised.