OPINION:
Our nation is facing tough economic and moral choices. China is our largest trading partner, with around $657 billion in two-way trade in 2021. Americans have benefited from lower prices and U.S. companies have profited immensely from access to China’s market. But China is also a hostile foreign power that refuses to play by the long-established global trade rules and norms, ultimately harming American workers and businesses.
The equipment manufacturing industry, which supports 2.8 million family-sustaining jobs in the United States and contributes $288 billion a year to the economy, needs Washington to get tougher and smarter in its dealings with Beijing to bring the bilateral relationship back into balance. American business leaders recognize the problems we face on the global stage. In a new survey of 100 CEOs of equipment manufacturing companies, nearly 85% stated that China’s unfair trade and investment practices are preventing them from competing on a level field.
Our dependence on China for critical products, materials and resources is a significant threat to our national security. Nearly 60% of the world’s rare earth minerals are under Chinese control. These minerals are essential for products like batteries for electric vehicles and semiconductors, which continue to be in short supply due to persistent supply chain disruptions. But they are also vital components to defense systems key to American military supremacy, including precision-guided weapons, night-vision goggles and stealth technology.
This dependence leaves us vulnerable to any number of economic and national security threats and puts our ability to defend ourselves in the hands of a hostile regime that can cut us off at a moment’s notice.
China also continues to actively manipulate its currency. China regularly devalues the yuan to make imports much cheaper for the United States. This in turn makes exporting goods to China from the United States far more expensive, growing the trade deficit and harming American workers and American manufacturers.
And China’s extensive, systematic theft of intellectual property from American companies continues at a rapid pace. American companies seeking access to the Chinese market are required to transfer their intellectual property to Chinese companies. The Communist Party continues to steal research and technology from the United States to boost its military and economic power while simultaneously weakening the United States. In fact, China views stealing technology and intellectual property as a central tenet of its strategy to achieve global scientific dominance.
Most importantly, our current trade relationship with China condones abhorrent human rights violations, which are ongoing. The most widely discussed is the imprisonment of the Muslim Uyghurs in labor camps. But China routinely enables labor abuses because it contributes to driving down costs of products made in China, giving them another advantage over American companies — this one obtained by the most reprehensible means imaginable.
The rights we deem essential are not imaginable for most Chinese people. The Communist Party targets Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and other religions that do not fall in line with party doctrine. The government regularly detains dissenters, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and treatment and instilling fear as a matter of policy.
How can China be stopped? Legislation like the global competition and innovation bill under consideration by Congress is a good starting point. But more must be done.
We must call out China’s currency manipulation, as the previous administration did repeatedly, and aggressively fight back against its intellectual property theft. We must hold China accountable on the world stage for its gross human rights violations. These are enormous, long-term challenges for our country that must be countered through a robust economic and geopolitical response by the United States.
Our elected leaders must fight for American workers and industry with every tool at their disposal, or we will soon find ourselves in a position from which our nation may never recover.
• Kip Eideberg is the senior vice president for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.