US President Joe Biden’s US trade representative nominee, Katherine Tai (戴琪), on Monday said that she would work to fight a range of “unfair” Chinese trade and economic practices, and would seek to treat Chinese censorship as a trade barrier.
In written answers to senators’ questions following her confirmation hearing last week, Tai said that she would seek to use the enforcement consultation process in former US president Donald Trump’s “Phase 1” trade deal with China to ensure the protection of US intellectual property.
“I am open to exploring a wide range of options to address our long-standing problems with China’s unfair trade practices, including bilateral talks,” Tai wrote.
Photo: AFP
“However, I will not hesitate to act if those talks prove ineffective,” she said, without naming specific consequences.
Tai said that she would work to address market access restrictions that prevent US companies from competing in the Chinese market, including for cloud computing.
She told US Senator John Cornyn that Chinese government censorship policies also disadvantage US businesses, and that if confirmed, she would work with him “to develop trade policies that treat censorship as a trade barrier.”
Tai’s written answers to questions from members of the US Senate Finance Committee came as the US Trade Representative’s Office released a report on the Biden administration’s trade agenda that included consideration of a border adjustment tax on goods from countries with high carbon pollution and a vow to combat China’s use of forced labor in its Xinjiang region.
Asked how she would handle “Section 301” tariffs on Chinese goods and tariff exclusions that are now expiring, Tai said that she would work to “ensure that those tariffs are appropriately responsive to China’s practices, and take into account the impact on US businesses, workers and consumers.”
In a nod to the US energy sector, Tai also said that she would work with the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture to promote market access for US energy exports, including liquefied natural gas and ethanol.
Separately, a US national security commission recommended that the US Congress tighten “choke points” on chipmaking technology to prevent China from overtaking the US in semiconductors.
The US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, led by former Google chairman Eric Schmidt, recommended clamping down on China’s ability to procure the manufacturing equipment needed to make advanced computing chips.
Such chips are used in surveillance technologies such as facial recognition.
“China is making an aggressive push to promote authoritarianism around the world,” a commission official told reporters. “It boils down to semiconductors.”
A lot of chipmaking equipment comes from US firms such as Applied Materials Inc and Lam Research Corp, which are already subject to US export controls.
However, key gear also comes from firms such as Nikon Corp and Canon Inc in Japan and ASML Holding NV in the Netherlands.
The report recommends that the US coordinate with those nations to create a policy of “presumptive denial” in each country for export licenses of advanced chipmaking tools to China.
The report also recommends formalizing into US policy a longstanding regulatory practice of limiting China’s semiconductor industry to two generations behind the US.
In addition to steps to protect US and allied chipmaking technology, the report also recommends measures to promote semiconductor manufacturing in the US after decades of industry migration to Taiwan and South Korea.
The US$35 billion in proposals for grants and funding for chip plants and research overlaps with $37 billion in chip industry measures that Biden pledged to support last week.
The commission also calls for a 40 percent investment tax credit for semiconductor tools, which it says would spur chip factory construction in the US as well as benefit American toolmakers.
“Our No. 1 ‘protect’ strategy is to run faster” than China’s chip industry, the commission official said.
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