By jumping at shadows, Americans risk missing real opportunities

Note: The following is an edited translation of a commentary from the Chinese-language "Commentaries on International Affairs."

In a well-publicized speech he made last month, United States Vice President Mike Pence accused China of having "masterminded the wholesale theft of American technology, including cutting-edge military blueprints." At almost the same time, Bloomberg published a story claiming that China's military had installed "spy chips" into hardware used by around 30 major American tech companies. The allegations in the Bloomberg report were quickly denied by the companies involved, and by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. But this didn't stop some segments of the American media from arguing that, even if China was innocent of the accusations, it would probably be guilty one day. Claims like this reflect the anxiety of the people in the United States who jump at shadows when it comes to issues of China-U.S. relations.

[Photo: IC]

The challenge posed by allegations like those contained in the Bloomberg article is that the level of technical knowledge required to have an informed opinion is beyond the reach of most members of the general public. The situation becomes murkier still when fears are raised about espionage in a media environment where even the wildest conspiracy theories can gain traction. 

Perhaps the most striking examples of this in recent times occurred during the 2016 American presidential election, when various bizarre, horrifying, and completely false stories regarding the Clinton campaign were widely spread on social media. This included an allegation that a pizza restaurant in northwest Washington was harboring young children as sex slaves as part of a child-abuse ring led by the Clintons. As insane as this allegation is, it found an audience of believers; one man even armed himself and attacked the restaurant in an attempt to save the children he believed were in the basement. During the election, we saw an acceleration of the tendency for subjectivity and sensationalism to take the place of evidence and rationality when assessing whether a story was newsworthy. 

The reaction in America to the Bloomberg report on "spy chips" shows that this tendency towards sensationalism wasn't limited to the election. Despite unambiguous denials from technology leaders Apple and Amazon, and from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and a lack of hard proof offered by Bloomberg to back up their claims, the story continued to circulate through American media outlets and on social media for several days. A lie repeated a thousand times doesn't become true, but that doesn't stop it from doing damage. China has had mud thrown at its reputation as a safe place for electronics manufacturing. And there was a widespread fall in tech stocks, leading to the biggest fall in the Nasdaq in the past six months.

 United States Vice President Mike Pence. [Photo: IC]

Beyond the lack of verifiable evidence provided by Bloomberg to support their claims, the story doesn't pass a basic test of logic: Would China do it? Dr. Robert Kuhn, a well-known American expert on China, said at a Harvard University China-U.S. think tank event, "a hardware hack on a computer would be the worst possible business decision that anybody could make, because for the little espionage information you get what some company is doing, the little bit of information you might get, you are putting in jeopardy the whole supply chain of China's business, and that could be the worst possible decision that a leader could make." China has spent years building up advanced manufacturing global supply chains as it pushes to grow its economy. Why would it put all of that at risk with a wild scheme that carries so much risk for so little gain? 

Regardless of the lack of reasonableness in the allegations, the "spy chip" story will no doubt be held up as proof by the current American administration that they need to take an even more hardline approach to dealing with China.

At the end of his speech, Mike Pence quoted the famous Chinese writer Lu Xun in an attempt to convey the idea that China has always been unable to treat other countries as equals. It was a moment rich in irony, given that of all the countries in the world, the United States is in the least suitable position to accuse anyone of being unable to treat another country as an equal. As for the tendency of segments of the American media and political class to jump at shadows whenever the topic of China comes up in conversation, what they should really be afraid of is the missed opportunities for the two largest economies to strengthen their cooperation and bring more stability and certainty to the world.