“When they overtake us [economically], we’re done,” he added, citing a Goldman Sachs estimate that China “will finally be able to overtake the United States within the next 10 years”.
US Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Missouri Republican, during the hearing of the House select committee on China on Thursday. Photo: C-Span
“They will be able to dictate all sorts of things to all their economic partners around the world.”
Kendler contended that the Commerce Department had taken “a litany of steps … to make sure that the Chinese government” did not gain “technology that they can use to threaten US national security interests”. She cited the restrictions on the export of “dual-use civilian technologies by the military”.
The rhetorical battle over US trade and investment with China underscored a growing divide on Washington’s approach to Beijing, one of the few fronts on which the two parties have increasingly converged in recent years.
Republicans have seized on a recent resumption of dialogue between high-ranking officials in US President Joe Biden’s administration – including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen – and their counterparts in Beijing, characterising these efforts as appeasement.
As Kendler did on Thursday, the Biden administration often touts restrictions it placed last year on exports of the most advanced semiconductors and their production equipment to China.
But Republicans have cited statistics showing high rates of approval for US exporters seeking permits to sell such items to the country.
US Representative Jake Auchincloss, Democrat of Massachusetts, essentially laid out Biden administration arguments in his questioning of Kendler. Photo: C-span
“We said we’re going to do all the invention and we’ll do all this stuff in Silicon Valley,” he said. “You go to places like Lordstown, Ohio, and they’re hollowed out.
“If I was there, I’d be terribly upset at failed American leadership for 40 years while we just watched as steel left, as aluminium left.”
The hearing Thursday was the committee’s third public event in a week that included economic disengagement from China as a focal point.
On Wednesday, it hosted a debate with four experts on whether the US should revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status.
PNTR, a US legal designation for most-favoured nation status, was granted to China by then-president Bill Clinton in 2000, letting the two sides align their bilateral trade relationship with the rules of the World Trade Organization, which China acceded to the following year.
While Republicans argued for ending PNTR to eliminate incentives for companies to source from China, Democrats contended that revoking the status would raise taxes on American consumers and lead to retaliatory measures from China without bringing manufacturing jobs back.
In light of the debate, committee members appeared to be considering relatively moderate changes to the status quo.
One “middle path”, as Auchincloss called it, included reauthorising the generalised system of preferences, a trade programme that provides duty-free treatment for certain US imports from developing countries. Auchincloss said it could help reduce the US trade deficit with China.
