Committee Urges Five ‘Lines of Efforts’ to Defeat the Threats Posed by the Chinese Communist Party’s Technological Competition
CPDC Position Paper Offers Practical, Near-term Recommendations for Victory
August 28, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C.— The Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) today issued the third in a series of short “Position Papers” addressing grave threats posed to U.S. commercial and national security interests – and what might be done decisively to counter them. The latest paper entitled, “Competing Technologically with the Chinese Communist Party,” focuses on efforts Beijing has long undertaken to dominate five key technology portfolios.
The CPDC warns that the United States must pursue five “lines of effort” to match and overcome the CCP’s agenda of world domination. These are:
- Assuring America’s Leadership in Emerging Technologies: Never before has an economic competitor been able relentlessly to steal and use U.S. intellectual property (IP) on such a massive, unrestricted scale. This line of effort identifies major initiatives and actions needed to: safeguard innovation and IP; inflict costs on the CCP; and advance major technical thrusts, such as 5G, in order to preserve America’s competitiveness and dominance.
- Re-establishing American Industry and Secure its Supply Chains: America – through its embrace of globalist economic theory, PRC pricing maneuvers, and unwarranted complacency on the part of successive U.S. administrations – has allowed basic manufacturing capacity to flee the country. What is left is often more of the “assembler” activity vice the actual production of the basic elements. We must re-industrialize the United States economy in an innovative and economically viable manner by, among other things, restoring on scale the domestic manufacture of among other things: chips, circuit boards, integrated circuits, silicon wafers and rare earth metals.
- Ending U.S. dependence on China for essential generic medicines necessary for survival: The broader problem of dependency on China for manufacturing of critical products was powerfully brought home with a microcosmic example shockingly exposed by the CCP virus: our reliance on the PRC for generic medicines. This arrangement creates a yawning vulnerability that can be decisively used by an adversary. Indeed, starting from early on in the pandemic back in March 2020, state-controlled Chinese media threatened to withhold from this country needed medicine supplies. Initiatives needed to safeguard the United States and re-establish self-sufficiency with respect to the production of the full spectrum of pharmaceuticals and the infrastructure and raw materials necessary for generic medicine include: using federal procurement of U.S.-made generic drugs and active ingredients; utilizing federal incentives for investments in advanced manufacturing of essential generic drugs; implement federal incentives for domestic antibiotic fermentation plants.
- Countering the CCP in the Emerging Space Economy: The CCP has declared and demonstrated its intent to dominate space. Techniques the CCP has employed and honed in other sectors (e.g., IP theft and artificially low-price points to undermine and eliminate non-CCP offerings) will likely be used again to attempt to establish dominance of the rapidly evolving space economy. Five different space capabilities are the targets of the CCP and require urgent U.S. action: earth-imaging, space-based internet traffic, space solar power (SSP), lunar resource development of the Earth’s moon, and space launch services.
- Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI). Like 5G and space, AI is a new arena in which the CCP is determined to be dominant. The AI phenomenon is rapidly developing and there is a vital need for the United States to organize for action to counter the CCP’s ambitions in this portfolio. There is concern that this is an area in which China has already established leadership. Especially if that’s true, the following are among the steps the United States must take to prevent the situation from becoming an irreversible state of affairs – with dire repercussions for our national and economic security: 1) develop AI warfare research facilities, programs, communities and education resources in both the private and public sectors; 2) ensure that each AI system’s decision-making methodology can be audited by a human; and 3) conduct regular and frequent audits of firms engaging in artificial intelligence research, especially if they use H-1B employees from China and its trade partners.
The Committee on the Present Danger: China encourages executive branch officials, Members of Congress and their staff, the media and the public at large to view this and the CPDC’s other Position Papers as prescriptions for a secure future for this country, its people and those of the Free World more generally.
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To interview representatives of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, contact Media@HamiltonStrategies.com, Patrick Benner, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102.
