American Thinker
Aaron Hirschi, Nov 30, 2018
[excerpt]
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/11/trump_is_right_to_confront_china.htmlAmerica's relationship with China is one of the most important geopolitical issues of the modern era. Those who argue for a more aggressive stance against China are obligated to make the case as compelling as possible because an assertive approach to China has many risks. China abuses the United States in numerous ways that justify President Trump's confrontational approach to the Middle Kingdom. Simply put, the US must punish China for stealing our stuff.
Critics most often try to argue the anti-China position ignores how dependent we, as a country, are on China and how we import so much into the US that these tariffs can only hurt the United States. Yes, the Chinese manufacture many goods for the United States or assemble high tech products for consumption, but the United States is not dependent on China for the underlying high technology. Technology-intensive products such as iPhones are indeed assembled in China and China manufactures memory chips and other common components, but these are not considered exceptionally high tech.
Since we import so many electronic items from China, it would be easy to assume, for instance, that the US relies on China to make the highly advanced central processing units that act as the brains for the manufactured common electronic devices. This misconception that assembling a completed product in a country must mean that country also must be building all the components makes China look more technologically dominant than they actually are in the eyes of pro-China advocates. The US still leads CPU development and many fabrication sites are within the United States.
