Despite the best efforts of the Chinese Communist Party and its leadership, China is not going to take over the world. It faces serious structural issues – the lingering effects of the one child policy means their demography problem isn’t a problem so much as a crisis and its economy is in a downward spiral potentially on track for outright collapse.
The world doesn’t want a Beijing takeover, either. America’s greatest strength remains its soft power. World travel confirms this, at least anecdotally: go anywhere in the world and you’ll see people wearing American shirts, as I have seen even in places with troubled relations with the U.S., like Vietnam.
That’s because world citizens understand that the Chinese government will never keep the world running as well as America. Our Navy alone is large enough to defeat every other navy on the planet combined, and keeps international shipping lines so safe that even the Somalian pirate in Captain Phillips said, “Navy good. They protect us.”
There’s just one problem: could someone tell Chinese leadership this? Perhaps the return of President Trump – no stranger to tough talk and action – will finally change China’s political trajectory for the better. In fact, there are already promising signs.
Consider that last month, a Chinese hacking campaign resulted in one of the largest intelligence breaches in U.S. history, compromising eight domestic telecom and internet service providers and dozens of connected companies worldwide. Moreover, China and other adversarial nations tried to sabotage the November election.
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This behavior is unlikely to continue moving forward. While China – and other international malefactors – have been emboldened by the last four years of disastrous Democratic policies, they all seem to understand that the era of American weakness is coming to an end. President Donald Trump’s clearest priority is to re-assert the United States as the world’s only superpower, particularly when it comes to U.S.-China relations.
It's already working. Even before Trump resumed office, Chinese President Xi Jinping has reframed his attitude toward America: he went from insisting he “won’t back down” against the West to pleading for a “win-win” relationship. Yet, there are still areas for improvement when it comes to one of the most consequential issues: technology.
More specifically, the Trump Administration needs to exert its leverage on China’s use of open-source technology, such as RISC-V – which stands for reduced instruction set computer five. An alternative to licensed and protected Western technology, RISC-V is largely controlled by members of its Foundation, which direct future development and adoption of the technology.
The RISC-V group includes more than 3,100 members across 70 countries. Although the group insists it, “does not take a political position on behalf of any geography,” it owes massive amounts of funding to China. The group includes Chinese companies who create semiconductor chips for everything ranging from mobile devices to electric vehicles.
In 2019, RISC-V International moved its HQ to Switzerland, specifically to avoid incorporating in the U.S. Indeed, if there were a "poster child" for Chinese government influence, it would be RISC-V International. This foundation-turned-global “nonprofit” has clear ties to Beijing, representing China’s key opportunity to compete with the U.S. in developing advanced semiconductors. According to its website, more than half its top members are Chinese companies and PRC affiliates. These companies sit alongside US companies to determine the future direction of the technology.
RISC-V chips pose a significant national security risk, potentially leaving critical U.S. systems vulnerable to further cyber-attacks from Beijing. If you control the semiconductors in a device, you control the brains of that device. The Special Competitive Studies Project have been ringing the alarm about RISC-V’s broader national security risks for years.
Threats from Chinese companies and technology products circulating in the U.S. remain unresolved – we like to talk about TikTok because it’s high-profile, but the quieter, less sexy threats are probably greater. These threats have become more complex with advancements in technology, the uncertainty of AI, and the intricate supply chain for semiconductors that power everything we use every second of our waking lives – and much of our sleeping lives too.
The Trump Administration needs to remain tough of Chinese aggression, ensure we are protected from hostile technology, and reinvigorate our economy after the last disastrous four years.
China isn’t going to take over the world. Very soon, China won’t even be able to keep China running. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to cause a lot of problems before they figure that out.
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