Finally, we have someone other than the Feds or an academic addressing the China problem
by Alexander Bolton - 05/17/23
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is warning that China is trying to replace the dollar with the yuan as the world’s most traded currency and has evaded U.S. sanctions on Russia by setting up transfer trade system independent of Western banks.
Rubio warned the emergence of an alternative financial system “creates a blind spot” in which other nations and companies that do business with the United States “can hide questionable behavior from the global community.”
“Two policy conclusions should follow from these developments. The first is that we need to revitalize domestic manufacturing,” the Florida senator said, arguing that “to survive and thrive in a multipolar era, we need to be able to make things again — from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals and everything in between.”
Rubio said the second takeaway is that the United States needs to get better and making and keeping allies and can “no longer count on foreign countries to follow our lead by default.”
Senator Rubio has correctly assessed the problem, however his response is not likely to have any impact on the momentum Xi Jinping has initiated in the past six months. Rubio did nothing to challenge Xi’s use of the catastrophe in Ukraine to market his plan. For four months, Xi has been successfully organizing trade negotiations under the guise of peacemaking by bashing the US as a bully for using sanctions and a warmonger for supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine.
Rubio’s messaging played right into Xi’s claims that the US is “America First,” in it dealings with other nations, while China promotes win-win policies. Outside diplomatic circles, no one mentions China’s cohesion of trading partners to manipulate them into responding to political issues “the right way,”:
China’s economic coercion has become part and parcel of its foreign policy against many trading partners. Countries that interact with Taiwan, support democracy in Hong Kong, oppose genocide in Xinjiang or offend any other “core interests” of China face discriminatory, non-WTO-conforming sanctions and embargoes. Targets of this weaponization of trade since 2008 range widely. Eighteen Western and Asian countries, including Japan, Lithuania, Norway, and Australia, and over 123 private companies, including Walmart and the National Basketball Association, have been targeted precipitating tens of billions of dollars in economic damage.
Simply acknowledging China’s push to destabilize the dollar and undercut US trade relationships is not enough. The US needs a coherent, easy to understand, inclusive trade policy to counter the aggressive messaging China is promoting daily. Secondly, espousing democratic and capitalist intend in think tanks, and closed door conferences among peers and allies does not make it through paywalls, all the world hears is silence.
A coherent message of Investments in infrastructure, education and research are the answers the world needs to hear as the US response to China’s aggression.