'Planting The Seeds Of Its Own Decline': Ritchie Torres Decries US Miscalculations Towards CCP

3 months ago

During a House Select Committee on the CCP hearing last week, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) spoke about 'miscalculations' that the United States made towards China.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:02Representative Torres.

00:03Thank you, Mr. Chair. For far too long, the United States has been planting the seeds

00:08of its own decline through a series of strategic miscalculations and misplaced priorities.

00:13First came the deindustrialization of America. We made a miscalculation in allowing our domestic

00:18industrial capacity to atrophy from neglect. And then came the distraction of America.

00:24We made a miscalculation in allowing ourselves to be distracted by quagmires in the Middle

00:28East from the singular challenge to American leadership, which is the Chinese Communist

00:33Party.

00:34Thankfully, under the leadership of President Biden, aided by a bipartisan consensus here

00:38in Congress, we are correcting these historical errors to the benefit of U.S. strategic competitiveness.

00:46One of the greatest achievements of the Biden administration lies in fundamentally changing

00:51the trajectory of the semiconductor arms race, or what Mr. Miller calls the chip wars.

00:57With the CHIP Act and the export controls on China have been game changers. According

01:02to a report by the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Boston Consulting Group,

01:06by 2032, the United States will account for 30 percent of advanced semiconductor production

01:12compared to only 2 percent for China.

01:16Mr. Miller, what is the percentage of advanced semiconductors that are projected to come

01:20not only from on-shoring but also from near-shoring and front-shoring beyond the reach of the

01:25Chinese Communist Party?

01:27Representative, I think we are seeing substantial investments both in the United States but

01:30also in allied countries, in Europe, in Japan, in other partners that is adding to the resilience

01:35of the semiconductor supply chain.

01:38And to what extent does the restrictiveness of America's immigration system undermine

01:43the capacity to domestically produce advanced semiconductors?

01:46Representative, I think if we could have more immigrants with high skills in the semiconductor

01:51industry, we would have a more innovative ecosystem.

01:54You know, the term protectionism is often invoked as a pejorative to denounce the policy

02:03shift away from so-called free trade.

02:06But in my view, there is nothing remotely free about trade with China.

02:10The idealized vision of free trade implies a level playing field in which everyone is

02:15playing by the rules.

02:17China has never been one to play by the rules.

02:19China is heavily subsidizing its own industries in order to drive American manufacturers out

02:23of business.

02:25That is not competition.

02:27That is cheating.

02:28And President Biden's tariffs are protecting American manufacturers not from competition

02:34but from cheating.

02:35Mr. Paul, do you believe, as I do, that the protectionism versus free trade framing ignores

02:41the reality of cheating on the part of the Chinese Communist Party?

02:44Yes, it's an easy headline, but it doesn't distill all of the issues involved.

02:49And I would just point out there's a difference between building a moat or a wall around your

02:53country and simply locking your door, which is what I think the tariffs do, which is smart.

02:58No one wants to let something bad happen in their house.

03:02I feel like we in the China Committee have no greater mission than to prevent a third

03:07world war between the United States and China, to prevent China from escalating aggression

03:13in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

03:16And a war in the Indo-Pacific, as you know, would largely be a naval war.

03:20And according to the Secretary of the Navy, quote, one Chinese shipyard has more capacity

03:26than all of our shipyards combined.

03:30We have a reputation as the military superpower, the naval superpower of the world.

03:36Are we truly the naval superpower of the world when we have no independent shipbuilding capacity

03:40and when ours pales in comparison to our greatest rival?

03:45I would say it's diminishing.

03:47And that is the concern here, is that we currently have a tonnage advantage, but it's unsustainable.

03:52We don't have a surge capacity.

03:53I mean, the thing that helped identify, and I'm glad the chairman mentioned the arsenal

03:58of democracy, was that we were able to do conversions very quickly to scale up battleship

04:06building capacity.

04:07And the difference now is that we don't have that.

04:11I mean, that has disappeared.

04:13We do have some shipyards that have been converted to just doing repair work that we could scale

04:18back up.

04:19But we are dangerously deficient when it comes to scaling up to meet the kind of conflict

04:26that you're talking about for any sustained amount of time.

04:31Mr. Miller, just one more question about, obviously much has been said about China's

04:36overcapacity of legacy shipmaking.

04:40Do you think that the rest to the supply chain security of the United States is so serious

04:44that it warrants a policy response from the United States, and what should that policy

04:48response be?

04:49Yes, I think a policy response is warranted.

04:52I think some mix of trade measures and restrictions on use of Chinese semiconductors in critical

04:57systems should be examined as potential policy responses.

05:00My time has expired, so thank you.

'Planting The Seeds Of Its Own Decline': Ritchie Torres Decries US Miscalculations Towards CCP

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