Why the fears of a U.S.-China tech cold war are overblown

Such a standoff is extremely unlikely

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons, The7Dew/iStock)

Maybe President Trump's trade ban of telecommunications equipment giant Huawei signals the start of a long-term technological "cold war" between the United States and China. Anti-China hawks in Washington sure hope it does. As they see it, the tech leader of the 21st century will also be its leading economic and military superpower. And perhaps the most important way to make sure the world gets a second American Century is to completely disentangle America's tech sector — including manufacturing, investment capital, research, and workers — from China's. Step one: Kill Huawei, arguably that nation's most import tech firm.

This extreme vision is more grandiose than grand, however, and lacks even the basic elements to transform it beyond a catchphrase. Think about the Cold War in the second half of the last century. Tensions between America and Russia were first given that label in 1947 by financier Bernard Baruch, an economic adviser to President Wilson during World War I and President Roosevelt during World War II. President Kennedy characterized the conflict in his 1961 inaugural address as a "long twilight struggle" to defend freedom around the globe. And President Reagan said it would end with the consignment of Soviet communism "to the ash heap of history," which happened in 1991.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.