Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said that the U.S. should end its dependence on China, and that the first thing it should do is to recognize its dependence is a problem. According to his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. and China are already engaged in an economic war with each other, and other people should wake up to this reality. However, Sankar says that many business leaders still refuse to see this, and still wholeheartedly believe in the Chinese message of its “peaceful rise.”
The opinion piece points out that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently expressed his opinion that the label ‘China hawk’ is not a badge of honor Americans should wear, it is really ‘a badge of shame.’ Huang also said it “doesn’t have to be all us or them. It could be us and them.”
Mulling over the Nvidia CEO’s philosophy, the Palantir CTO wrote, “The first step to ending our dependence on China is admitting we have a problem.” Sankar continued, “We can continue as useful idiots, decrying ‘China hawks’ who point out that we’re funding our own demise. Or we can wake up to the reality that we’re already in an economic war in which every purchase and investment will help determine which system survives.”
While Sankar does not directly call out Huang as a “useful idiot,” the implication is certainly there, given his reference to the Nvidia CEO’s comments. The Nvidia CEO has always been against export controls on the most powerful chips, saying that such a move could backfire against the U.S., as it would allow Chinese companies like Huawei to define global standards.
Instead, Huang wants his chips to be readily available in China, so that American technology can become the backbone of global AI technology. We should note, though, that China used to be Nvidia’s biggest export market, where it once had 95% market share — it has since dropped to zero because of export controls and the ongoing trade war between the two global rivals.
American companies complicit
American companies have been an undeniable part of China’s growth, with juggernauts like Apple, Tesla, Intel, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola, among others, investing heavily in the country. This massive inflow of cash, technology, and know-how has allowed it to rise and become the leading global manufacturer. In fact, some experts say that companies stay in China not because of cheap labor, but because it’s the only country that already has the necessary supply chain in place to build the latest technology.
Sankar argues that the U.S. should face this development head-on by rebuilding the industrial base it has let slide. While Washington does not have to completely stop trade with China, it does have to take steps to build alternative markets and supply chains to avoid so that it has alternatives and not be left with no choice but to comply with Beijing’s demands.
The Palantir CTO argues that the current situation will only get worse if the U.S. does not take action today, but there are still quite a few who refuse to see this. On this point, he quoted Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
This will be a long and arduous road, though, especially as many are already used to cheap goods coming from China. But it’s only with that realization that the United States can take the painful but necessary steps to ensure that it remains sovereign in the face of Beijing’s goal to overtake the US in global supremacy.
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