Furious declarations of economic war on China by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Dec. 2 have drawn a very firm response from China’s Foreign Ministry, which said its semiconductor and related technology advancement could not be stopped, by the United States or otherwise. Raimondo showed again, if it were necessary, the Biden Administration’s intent dramatically to weaken China’s economy—if not “crush” it, as Russia’s was to be crushed—while talking about a stable but competitive relationship.
Raimondo made a typical outburst when interrupting the CNBC interviewer Morgan Brennan at the Reagan Center who asked about Huawei’s new smartphone featuring a very advanced semiconductor chip:
”[China’s] capable of doing very bad things, and we’re gonna deny the entire country this class of equipment. We can’t let China get these chips. Period. Listen, America leads the world in artificial intelligence. Period. Full stop. We’re a couple years ahead of China. No way are we going to let them catch up. We cannot let them catch up. So we’re going to deny them our most cutting-edge technology. This is the biggest threat we’ve ever had.”
