America’s Flawed Strategy for Rivalry with China

Renowned policy expert Robert Atkinson, with a wealth of experience spanning multiple administrations, challenges conventional wisdom on US-China chip relations. His bold stance? Shift focus from export bans to import restrictions. In his interview with us, Atkinson unveils the rationale behind his proposal and offers a fresh perspective on navigating the complex landscape of US-China relations.

April 25, 2024

The China Academy Interview

In-depth conversations on China’s future, without limits

The China Academy:
Based on your previous articles and videos, it appears that you are advocating for a relaxation of export bans to China, while also advocating for import bans on Chinese products. Could you please elaborate on the rationale behind your proposal? This stance seems to diverge from the policies of the Biden administration.

Robert Atkinson:
So it’s a little bit broader than what I advocate, but that’s generally in the right direction.
We’ve long had export restrictions for many countries, including the Soviet Union and others, where we think that the technology could be used for creating weapons systems. So, for example, back in the Cold War with the Russians, we had export bans on certain types of machine tools that could make propellers in submarine super silent, because that was a national security risk. We want their submarines to be noisy and ours to be quiet. I’m fully supportive of that.
Where it gets a little fuzzier is where we’re putting export bans on technologies, particularly like semiconductor chips. And no one can deny that one of the effects of that is to hurt our own companies. Our own companies now have fewer sales. That means they probably will invest slightly less in research and development and developing the next generation of chips. So in a way, there’s a phrase in the US or in the West called “cutting your nose off to spite your face.” So we’re we’re cutting our nose off because we could be selling more. I believe the same thing with AI and cloud computing restrictions. That’s not to say we should go the whole hog and go crazy. If you look at the current GPU, the graphics processing units, accelerator chips that are used in AI, the ones that we’re banning now, the next generation that’s being developed in the US is probably five times faster. Ultimately, China is going to be able to make those chips. So I worry that we’re not really getting any real benefit. Maybe we’re throwing some barriers on the road for a little bit, but not really fundamentally making a big dent.
On the import ban, what I really am saying there is not an import ban, but we have a law in the US that allows the government to ban products from companies if we can legally prove that they are producing unfairly or using stolen intellectual property. I think certainly not every Chinese company does that. There are Chinese companies that are just out there competing like everybody else and I would not want to ban their products. But if there’s a company where it’s clear they stole intellectual property, and the Chinese market is closed to US in that industry, then I do think we should ban it. And again not permanently, but to say to the Chinese government, hey, we need reciprocity here. We need a fair playing field on both sides.