Challenge from China is worse than Cold War: Washington

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell urged greater US investment in advanced technology to compete better with China.

Kurt Campbell said that most of Washington’s European allies shared concerns about China’s ties with Moscow. Picture: Getty Images

China presents the biggest challenge to the US in all of its history, surpassing the Cold War, a top US official said overnight on Wednesday, as he urged Europe to get tougher on Beijing.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, an architect of a 15-year push for the US to reorient its foreign policy towards Asia, also urged greater US investment in advanced technology to compete better with China.

“There is a recognition that this is the most significant challenge in our history,” Dr Campbell told the House of Representatives foreign affairs Committee. “Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents.

“It’s not just a military challenge; it’s across the board. It is in the Global South. It is in technology. We need to step up our game across the board.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration has been pressing China about technology exports to Russia that US officials say have allowed Moscow to ramp up military production for its war in Ukraine.

“The challenge is, we’ve got to get more support here on this,” Dr Campbell said of US sanctions on Chinese firms, an issue he said he had been raising on visits to Europe.

Dr Campbell said that most of Washington’s European allies shared concerns about China’s ties with Moscow but were still reeling from the “huge shock” of slashing energy imports from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine. “For many of these countries, doing business with China has been a big deal for 15 or 20 years,” he said.

Acting on China, after Russia, could feel like “kind of a one-two punch. You can understand leaders in Europe have some anxieties,” he said.

China argues that, unlike the US, it is not providing weapons to either Russia or Ukraine, but Washington says Beijing is providing support that has military uses.

Dr Campbell’s tough talk comes despite easing tensions between the US and China under Mr Biden, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump more frequently speaking in Cold War terms about confronting Beijing.

Mr Biden and his political heir Kamala Harris have supported dialogue with China even as their administration presses ahead with tough measures, including a sweeping ban on exports of advanced chips.

Since a summit last year between Mr Biden and President Xi Jinping in California, China has agreed to key US requests of restoring military communications and cracking down on ingredients in fentanyl, the drug behind a US overdose epidemic.

Dr Campbell contended that the Biden administration has strengthened the US position since taking over from Mr Trump, in part by bolstering alliances. “Four years ago, the general view globally was that China had eaten our lunch, that they were going to surpass us, economically and commercially, that we were in the midst of some sort of hurtling decline,” he said.

“I do not think that is what the general belief is today.”

Meeting another key request of the Biden administration, China freed an American pastor, David Lin, who had been detained since 2006, the State Department confirmed on Sunday. The US had raised the case of Mr Lin and other detained Americans with China, including when Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of a meeting in Laos in July.

The State Department considers two other US citizens, Kai Li and Mark Swidan, to be wrongfully detained by China, but activists say far more Americans are behind bars or prohibited from exiting.

The mother of Mr Swidan, detained over drug trafficking charges he denies, told a separate congressional hearing that Mr Biden needed to engage with China on its proposals to free him. “His case is a clear injustice, yet it continues to be ignored by those with the power to act,” she said.

AFP