Latest in what appears to be a series “America Bad”. After yesterday’s hit piece by Zhou Xiaoming.
This one from professor Steven Roach at Yale University. The U.S. “must do better” we are told. “Sinophobia is off the rails …”
I wonder if Roach, dumping on the U.S. from the comfort of his ivory tower at Yale, thinks his equivalent at, say, Tsing Hua University could do a similar broadside on China?
Anyway, picking nits. Quotes from the article indented:
“[Huawei] was accused of deploying digital back doors that could enable Chinese espionage and cyberattacks…”
Accusations were not from the U.S. alone, but also the U.K., Australia and the EU. They hardly beggar belief.
“The Department of Justice has just indicted a state-sponsored Chinese hacking group for allegedly taking aim at critical American infrastructure. Much has also been made of the purported risks of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), construction and dock-loading cranes, and now TikTok.”
In his intro, Roach defined “Sinophobia” as an irrational fear and accused the U.S. of it. But the above are not “irrational” concerns:
- Concerns about attacks on U.S. infrastructure are well-documented, long-standing and apply not just to China. However, China has the most capacity for cyberattacks.
- On EVs it was China that first banned Teslas from what they deemed “sensitive sites” in China because they feared Tesla hacks. What’s good for the goose, ‘n all….
- On Tik Tok I’ve made the case for its banning, here and here. And “4 guys who know their stuff discuss the Tik Tok ban bill.”. The Congressional Committee passed it 50-0, virtually unprecedented unanimity.
“Not since the red-baiting of the early 1950s has America so vilified a foreign power.”
Why “red-baiting”? Why the mockery? The early fifties were barely post war. Stalin’s Soviet Union promptly gulped down Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. In the sixties Krushchev vowed to the west “we will bury you!” He meant it. The Kennedy-Krushchev face-off in Cuba was a real existential threat of global nuclear apocalypse.
So, yeah, the Soviet Union was vilified and more so than China today. I remember it personally. All we older Boomers do. Ronald Reagan did vilification best, when called the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire”. That’s not “red-baiting”; that’s being anti the takeover of the world by Soviet communism.
The intelligence community over-estimated the Soviets strength. And they may be overestimating Chinese strength today. But even if, it’s surely inarguable that China is vastly stronger than the Soviets ever were. Criticising them is not “vilification”.
