Shellenberger opined in late November, 2022 that the West must accelerate re-shoring (aka bringing back) strategic industries from China to U.S. But the women and girls in China and Hong Kong are now risking their lives for freedom. Citizen journalism has eclipsed mainstream news reporting, with even The New York Times citing tweeted videos. In one video a young woman marches stoically through a public alleyway holding up a blank piece of paper. She is wearing chains around her arms. In another, a young woman refuses to move while filming police with her smart phone. She is assaulted by the police who hand her to a group of people wearing white protective gear, presumably to protect themselves and others from covid.
And in another, men shoo cameras away from a woman holding a blank piece of paper in protest. The government is using Covid as justification for sweeping repression. Another video shows Chinese police beating a BBC journalist. In a statement, BBC protested the reporter’s assualt and criticizes the government’s claim that the police who were beating the reporter were simply trying to protect him from Covid.
Instead of saying anything about them the Secretary-General of the United Nations warned of the impact on women and girls from… climate change. “Violence against women and girls is exacerbated by the intersecting crises of climate, conflict and economic instability,” tweeted Antonio Guterres. “We need #ClimateAction, and a more peaceful & equitable world to ensure the well-being of women & girls everywhere.”
But even President Joe Biden has been shamefully quiet, while tweeting about small businesses and the economy and saying nothing about the protests in China, with the White House issuing a perfunctory statement affirming the right of people to protest. Others, like World Economic Forum’s founder, praised China just a few days ago on state television. “China is a model for many nations,” said Klaus Schwab on November 19, 2022. Schwab was seen participating actively in the G-20 meeting in Indonesia two weeks ago.
Defenders of Biden, the UN, and other global elites will say that it can speak on many issues at once. The Secretary-General of the UN and Biden are unlikely to write their own tweets. They may not even see them. And there is still plenty of time for them to speak up.
But world leaders have had plenty of time to speak up and haven’t. They are perfectly capable of ordering their staffs to retweet the videos of young women risking their lives.
Some China experts took to Twitter to explain that the world should not get its hopes up for freedom and democracy in China. Such defensive pessimism is understandable but not be used as an excuse for Western leaders to remain silent. What, then, explains the passivity of Western leaders?
Schwab has been pandering to the Chinese regime since 1978. The Chinese government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in August offered up this purple prose:
“In 1978, Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, with his keen perception and insight, predicted that… China would play a vital role on the world stage….” Since then, notes the ministry, “China has never been absent from the Davos meetings.” In fact, China has hosted WEF meetings every other year since 2007.
Schwab has relentlessly promoted the Chinese model for the world. “He said, with his hands pointing upward,” according to the Ministry, “that China has grown from a backward economy to a leading country, that instead of fixing its eyes on the West, the WEF needs to focus more on the East in order to gain impetus from China's rapid growth… He believes that China is a responsible major country that can shoulder more global responsibilities.”
Schwab has provided a platform for Chinese President Xi Jinping to make false claims about its human rights record. “Quoting President Xi's ideas of ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’ and the ‘Chinese Dream,’” enthused the Chinese Foreign Ministry, “Dr. Schwab said that we are living in a global, interdependent world and have a common destiny as mankind, that President Xi's speech was crucial for building an innovative, open, fair and inclusive society.”
The underlying problem is that the West is overly dependent on China for its manufactured products, not just solar panels and electric car batteries from Xinjiang province, but also iPhones and many other products from across the country. The West’s dependence on China is now undermining the ability of Western leaders to forcefully speak up for the rights of the brave women and men who are demanding their freedom.
China is currently the largest goods trading partner with the US, with $559 billion in goods traded in 2020. Of that, $435 billion is in goods imported to the U.S., with $200 billion in electronics and machinery, all of which may be considered strategic.
The U.S. and other Western societies must return more of our strategic industries to the US. To the extent that it is already happening we should explore accelerating the process. China could invade Taiwan at any moment.
Managing the repatriation of strategic industries to the U.S. will require an industrial security policy. Such a policy will make some free market advocates nervous, and rightly so. There is an ugly history of failed industrial policy in the U.S. But there are also notable successes, particularly as related to energy (nuclear and fracking) and defense technologies (microchips and the Internet).
Discernment matters. Many industries aren’t strategic. The U.S. imports $23 billion in furniture and bedding from China and and $26 billion in toys and sports equipment, which would be easy to source from other nations or make in the US.
Many firms want to produce more rare earths in the U.S. Some should since they are needed for electricity production and the defense industry. But they should be limited for those industries and not wasted on inefficient renewables which are not strategic industries.
Some supply chains will be best located in other nations. If done right, such a policy will reduce the problems of bringing back industries, including electronics. Already Congress made progress with the bipartisan CHIPS act passed earlier this summer.
We should go further to include a natural gas-and-nuclear energy agenda aimed at bringing back heavy industries including fertilizers, high-end electronics, personal protective gear, drone manufacturing and other industries.
Such an agenda will appeal to elements on the Left and Right. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation argues that “it is imperative to address China’s use of domestic policies like zero-COVID that can hold international supply chains hostage. A first step is building better resilience into our global supply chains—especially those important to sustaining in wartime.” In particular, Heritage emphasizes the need to bring back shipbuilding.
The protests have now spread to Hong Kong, where crackdowns had made unrest rare and dangerous. In the city’s busiest commercial district, protesters held up blank papers. Police came and examined their IDs.
It may take a war, or for China to invade Taiwan, upon which the West depends for its microchips, for the US to finally do what it must to decouple from China. That would not be ideal. These protests are one of many warnings that the U.S. need to make changes to our relationship with China on our own terms, before unpleasant changes are forced upon us.
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