China is Using Tech to ‘Reset the Global Balance of Power,’ Experts Tell Congress

The government needs to diversify and strengthen its efforts to stop China from co-opting the US innovation economy to support its own global ambitions, industry experts told the House Oversight IT Subcommittee on Sept 26.  And tariffs probably aren’t the best way to do it, they said. “For more than 40 years, the US has encouraged China to develop its own economy and take its place alongside the US as a central and responsible player on the world stage,” said House Oversight IT subcommittee Chairman Will Hurd (R-TX). “China does not want to join us, they want to replace us. More importantly, China has not been playing fair.” At the hearing, panelists described the many measures China has taken to protect its domestic tech sector while exploiting foreign countries’ research and development efforts. The Chinese government views information and communications technology as “the basic metric for future power,” said Dean Cheng, a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow. As such, dominance in artificial intelligence, quantum technology, cloud computing and other sectors “presents an opportunity to reset the global balance of power,” he said. China’s booming tech industry not only presents economic and national security threats to the US, witnesses said, but it often comes at the expense of its own citizens.