Fu Suixin is an assistant researcher at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Recently, Biden announced an investigation into cars imported from China on the grounds of preventing risks. This is another heinous act of the United States to generalize the concept and abuse state power to suppress Chinese enterprises and implement protection policies.
Biden's immediate argument is that cars made in China could collect sensitive data about the United States and then transmit it back to China, or remotely operate the cars. This high-sounding so-called "** excuse" is completely inconsistent with the actual situation. At present, very few cars used in the United States are made in China, and the software of these vehicles is basically developed by American and Western companies such as Bosch and Harman, and it is very difficult to obtain data from car cameras and sensors through them, let alone remotely control the car through them. Therefore, it can be said that claiming that Chinese cars pose a risk to the United States is out of nowhere.
Biden has made no secret of his true purpose in suppressing Chinese automobiles. In his announcement, Biden made it clear that "China's policies could flood their cars into our market." I'm not going to let that happen right under my nose. This clearly shows that the so-called "**** is nothing more than an excuse, and its real purpose is to prevent Chinese cars, especially electric vehicles, from entering the US market and avoid American car companies from suffering a crushing defeat in normal competition."
The development of electric vehicles is a major move by Biden to implement industrial policy in order to compete with China, and it is also a major achievement that Biden strives to pursue. Biden** pushed Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, earmarking $369 billion for the development of the vital clean energy and electric vehicle industries. The bill provides U.S. companies with a tax credit of up to $7,500 per electric vehicle, while stipulating that subsidized vehicles cannot contain battery components or critical minerals made in China. In addition, U.S. automakers enjoy protection from high tariffs. Chinese cars entering the United States are required to pay 2The 5% regular import tariff is in addition to the 25% tariff that Trump imposed on China.
Despite his efforts to subsidize and protect, Biden's goal of developing electric vehicles remains difficult and even precarious. The market share of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, the three traditional American auto giants, is increasingly being eaten away by imported cars, and their electric vehicle production is still only a fraction of Tesla's. Tesla, on the other hand, has been trying for years to develop cheaper models in order to compete with Chinese manufacturers, but has so far been unsuccessful. Tesla is not only highly dependent on its factory in Shanghai and China's ** chain, but its CEO Elon Musk said in the earnings conference in January this year: "If there is no ** barrier to the establishment, Chinese car companies will almost easily kill most other car companies in the world." ”
China became the world's largest car exporter in 2023, and BYD surpassed Tesla for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2023 to become the world's largest electric vehicle company by sales. In the face of the super competitiveness of Chinese car companies, the United States can only offer the so-called "first reason" to suppress it.
Biden's suppression of Chinese car companies also has the urgent political reason of running for re-election. The U.S. auto industry is highly concentrated in swing states such as Michigan, which are crucial for Biden's re-election. Biden's policy of pushing electric vehicles has been so at odds with traditional fuel car companies and their workers that it has provoked a general strike by tens of thousands of auto workers in the United States in September 2023. Both Biden and Trump have traveled to Michigan to cater to the strikers. The crackdown on Chinese automakers is precisely to protect these uncompetitive traditional automakers. This would help Biden win the Midwestern swing states and try to avoid Republican attacks on his lack of anti-China.
The United States has a long history of suppressing Chinese companies and undermining China-US economic and trade relations on the grounds of so-called "**". Since 2017, both Trump and Biden have positioned China as a "competitor" of the United States, positioned the Sino-US relationship as a "strategic competition", and clearly repudiated the "engagement strategy" that the United States previously adhered to with China, emphasizing that competition has led to more influence on US China policy. Once security considerations take precedence over economic considerations, the United States will "pan-securitize" the problems in the economic field, emphasizing more on the deep interdependence with China's economy, which poses a threat and challenge to the United States, and strives to promote "decoupling and chain breaking" and "de-risking" with China.
Both Trump and Biden uphold the concept of "economic security is the first thing", and their economic, trade, financial, and technological suppression policies against China all emphasize the so-called "first" reasons. Biden** issued two executive orders to crack down on China's semiconductor industry in 2022 and 2023, both of which declared that their purpose was to prevent China from taking advantage of the cutting-edge technology development that the United States could use to counter the United States**. The United States often disregards the economic costs for the sake of the so-called "**." Although Huawei and ZTE's products are cheaper than their European and American counterparts, the United States has banned American operators from using the so-called "**" as an excuse, and has spent at least $5 billion to forcibly replace Chinese telecommunications equipment in remote rural areas. Biden also recently announced that he would allocate $20 billion to produce cranes locally to replace Chinese-made cranes in order to ensure the security of U.S. ports.
China has always firmly opposed the US's efforts to generalize the concept of "China" and abuse its state power to obstruct normal China-US economic and trade cooperation. Implementing a protective policy under the pretext of "** will only weaken the international competitiveness of American companies and increase costs for American consumers." The United States** should maintain a fair, open, inclusive, and non-discriminatory business environment in an objective and impartial manner.
Editor: Le Shui, Jiang Xinyu, Zhang Yanling.