04.06.2021 – 15:09
Everyone in Washington seems to agree that strategic competition with China is the most important issue of US foreign policy, but there is no agreement on how to resolve it.
As Congress works on its largest two-partisan package of legislation related to China, disturbing signs suggest that our government and policy may be too devastated to tackle this massive and complex challenge.
Last week, the Biden administration's “Asian tsar,” Kurt Campbell, publicly announced that the United States would embrace, not depart from, the Trump administration's decision to fundamentally reorient US foreign policy toward China.
“The dominant paradigm will be competition,” he said.
And next Tuesday, after months of delay, the Senate is set to finally pass what it calls comprehensive legislation to compete with China.
It is entitled the “Innovation and Competition Act”, and has been drafted by seven different commissions.
Different sections of the bill directly oppose each other on certain issues (such as restricting foreign donations to universities). Only about $ 54 billion of the $ 244 billion in billing innovation and research has actually been paid, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and that money represents funding for semiconductor production that was actually authorized in a previous bill that spent last year,.
“This bill is no longer about China, this bill is about trade provisions,” a senior aide to the GOP Senate committee told me.
The mess has just begun.
The House version throws out some references to Taiwan that were found in the Senate bill, includes nothing to counter the Chinese Communist Party efforts, and does not include the Senate request that requires a report on the origin of the coronavirus.
The GOP House is skeptical that House Democrats support the competitive focus approach that Biden White House and Senate Democrats are preaching.
Even if they find a compromise, the way forward is unclear.
Will there be a conference negotiation between the two chambers? No one knows.
Biden's White House is somewhat involved, but does not spend its political capital to take on a public leadership role. If the Democratic leadership in Congress has a legislative strategy that extends beyond next week, they are miraculously hiding it.
It is easy to imagine a scenario in which each room ends up adopting separate versions that never become law, each blaming the other for the overall failure.
This would be a clear sign that Washington is too rude to join, even when there is a broad consensus on an urgent issue of national and economic security.
The good news is that it is not too late for our leaders to take action together and do what everyone agrees is necessary: Put our country in a position to win the strategic race with China.
But the clock is ticking.
Translated and adapted by The Washington Post / konica.al
