daniel chigunweXin Ping
For the past 100 years, the United States has been the “city upon a hill”.
One reason is its continued hegemony in science and technology.
Whenever its dominance may be challenged, the US will spare no efforts to contain those it perceives as a threat, be it a rival or an ally. The recent US sell-or-ban bill on TikTok is just another typical example.
Five gimmicks the US often uses to maintain its scientific and technological hegemony.
Loot a burning house
Right after the end of World War II, the US plundered many scientific and technological fruits from Germany. Under the direct intervention of President Harry Truman, a large number of German scientists and engineers were extradited to the US, who later played an important role in US manned spaceflight, moon landing and other landmark projects.
On the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US carried out a “technological harvest” like a busy reaping machine. The American Lockheed Martin company tricked a former Soviet fighter jet design institute into providing relevant technical information with less than US$400 million only to renege on its own words and refused to pay the remainder of the promised sum after the Soviet institute provided all the information.
Bolster one and bash the other
The US is also good at playing its proxies against each other to secure its own technological lead. After the end of World War II, to counter the Soviet Union and New China in the Far East, the US vigorously supported Japan as it transferred a large number of technologies and manufacturing industries.
However, when the rapid development of science and technology in Japan started to threaten American supremacy, the US swiftly turned to the relatively backward Republic of Korea, supporting its development of semiconductors, automobiles, ships and other industries which were also Japan’s strong suits.
While these two countries competed, the United States was the one to benefit.
This time, to suppress China’s high-tech industry, the US has again resorted to the old trick of “supporting the weak and containing the strong”. By hiking tariffs, imposing trade restrictions and providing subsidies, the US is vigorously pushing the relevant enterprises to move their industrial and supply chains from China to India and Vietnam in an attempt to create “another China”.
Blame-shifting
During the Cold War, when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite in human history in 1957, the US media lamented that the US has lost its scientific and technological advantages and how there would always be a pair of Soviet eyes in the sky looking down at the US. The American people were thus led to believe that the Soviet Union must be contained and suppressed.
The US has pulled such gimmicks not only on its adversaries but also on its allies. In the 1980s, faced with the rapid rise of the Japanese semiconductor industry, the US manipulated the media to hype up the so-called “national security threat” by Japan, stirring up resistance to its ally across the country.
Today, in the face of China’s growing scientific and technological strength, the US has kept churning out false information, accusing China of unfair competition in boosting its high-tech industry and blaming China for job losses in some industries in the US. All of these are meant to direct the anger and frustration of the American people toward Chinese high-tech companies.
Long-arm jurisdiction
According to international law, the exercise of jurisdiction by one state over an extraterritorial person or entity usually requires a genuine and sufficient connection between the person or entity or its conduct and that state.
However, the US has arbitrarily decided that even the flimsiest connection can trigger its long-arm jurisdiction. Over the past decades, many enterprises, especially high-tech enterprises, have suffered greatly from such US practice.
In 1987, under US pressure, the Japanese police arrested two Toshiba executives who were charged with being “spies” involved in the sale of precision machine tools to the Soviet Union. — China Daily
Online Reporter