America Is Dangerously Out of Balance and Needs Self-Reliance

I’m typing this into a computer made in China, reading it on a screen made in China. The WiFi router that’s connecting me to the internet was made in China, as is the cable modem my internet service provider put in my house. The external keyboard and backup drives are made in China, as are most of the lamps, bulbs and other appliances on my desk. My eyeglasses and the shirt I’m wearing were made in China (the pants are from Malaysia, the shoes from Korea), as is the coat I wear outside. The one medication I take is made in India out of ingredients from China.

Meanwhile, this is the year — 2022 — that the government of China has ordered that all “government offices and public institutions” nationwide must “remove foreign computer equipment and software.”

This is, wrote Yuan Yang and Nian Liu from Beijing for the Financial Times back in December of 2019, “part of a drive for China’s government agencies and critical infrastructure operators to use ‘secure and controllable’ technology, as enshrined in the country’s Cyber Security Law passed in 2017.”

Thus, the effort to purge American cyber products from China began in 2019 and is supposed to wrap up this year. The nation is becoming digitally self-sufficient.

Given that pretty much everything you see in any American store was made in China, it’s a safe bet that the country long ago became self-reliant in everything from clothes to building materials to electronics to toys and…