【Comment】
Well, that’s a big
deal.
The judgment of either
“Trump is waging a trading war with China," or "it is a shift of
strategy", makes comment different.
US considers plan to
‘seize or freeze’ assets of Chinese caught stealing American intellectual
property SCMP 20181101
Ongoing debate highlights how the Trump administration has been looking
at raising the pressure on Beijing via measures beyond tariffs
The plan being discussed would use an Obama
administration executive order that
allows the US to impose sanctions on individuals or
entities engaging in “malicious cyber-enabled activities”.
But it has sparked a heated debate among administration officials, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has jurisdiction
over the potential sanctions, said to be
blocking the effort, the people said.
If the administration chooses to go ahead it could seize or freeze the
assets of Chinese companies caught stealing US firms’ intellectual property. It could also ban them from doing business
with American companies.
The ongoing debate highlights how the Trump administration has been
looking at raising the pressure on Beijing via measures beyond tariffs, all of which are part of what officials see as an
existential innovation war with China.
The administration is preparing to proceed with new
tariffs on some 6,000 products from China that account for US$200 billion in annual trade which US President
Donald Trump said would be imposed “soon”.
He also on Friday threatened to hit a further
US$267 billion in imports from China with tariffs “on short notice”,
adding to US$50 billion already in place. Together, they
would exceed the value of all imported Chinese goods last year, worth US$505
billion.
Beyond that, officials have been considering
how to apply new scrutiny to Chinese investment with legislation signed into
law in July giving new powers to the Committee on Foreign Investment in
the US, the inter-agency panel that can block
foreign buyers from acquiring American companies if they are considered a
threat to national security.
Under that same legislation, the Commerce Department has also been
charged with updating the list of products subject to export controls to better
protect industries seen as strategic such as artificial intelligence and
robotics.
A spokesperson for the department on Friday said it was still working on
that list.
China insists it has fulfilled its commitments under World Trade
Organisation rules and protects the intellectual property rights of foreign
firms. Beijing has also said any US trade sanctions will be met with
proportionate retaliation.
Some in the administration continue to hold out hope of a negotiated end
to the trade battles between the world’s two largest economies.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow
on Friday said the two sides were still engaged in “constant communications”.
China hawks in the administration, however, appear for the moment to have
the upper hand in the internal debate on
trade and continue to advocate increasing the pressure on China – specifically
with respect to IP theft.
The people familiar with the administration’s internal discussions over
using cybersecurity sanctions against Chinese entities said US Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer, a long-time hawk
on China, was one of the advocates for using the measure.
A spokesperson for Lighthizer declined to comment. Lighthizer has pushed for
unilateral measures on China before, when he urged Trump to expand restrictions
on Chinese investment by using an emergency law.
His agency’s Section 301 report alleged that China’s IP and tech transfer
policies were causing multiple billions of dollars in damage to US companies.
A spokesperson for Mnuchin didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Treasury chief has won
some of the internal battles on China before. Trump in June sided with
Mnuchin and US lawmakers when he decided against
applying an emergency law to curb Chinese investment in the US and
instead threw his support behind the legislation to tighten investment
restrictions and expand the list of critical technologies subject to export
controls restrictions.
The US business community has continued to express angst over the Trump
administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports and has been pushing for it to use
more creative measures.
“We remain frustrated the tariffs do little to address the semiconductor
industry’s real problems with China, especially IP theft,” said John Neuffer,
chief executive officer of the Semiconductor Industry Association.
“We welcome creative efforts by the government to embrace a more muscular
stance when it comes to IP enforcement. Let’s not forget that
without IP, the modern American economy would wilt, so it must be protected.”
Andrew Grotto, who helped draft the
original executive order while serving as a cybersecurity adviser in the Obama
administration, said it could be an effective tool
to crack down on Chinese cybertheft of commercial secrets.
But the powers it grants to impose sanctions
have only been used a few times until now, he said, in part because it
required evidence that any hacking was done for
commercial reasons rather than as part of a broader espionage effort.
That was done, he said, so that the US could not be accused of using such
cybersecurity sanctions as a tool of economic warfare, he said. But if there
is evidence that a state-owned Chinese companies was carrying hacking attacks
for commercial gains, then “I would be supportive.”
美國用凍結中國的財產的手法一直從老蔣都沒變過,真不知是中國不知反省還是美國太懶,這個手法用在中國上一直很管用
回覆刪除當年美國用凍結「中國的財產」,是老蔣所託。
刪除目的在凍結「中華民國(南京)」的財產。
美國沒有太懶,相反的,美國一直很努力掌握大局,也很有經驗。