China Morning Missive

As a strategy, this just won’t work. Then again, the targeting of both Tencent and CATL is just more of the same approach to “containing” China which the Biden administration has followed for years.

Am also not entirely certain how Tencent, a gaming and social media platform (WeChat) is working with the Chinese military in a way that harms American interests. Maybe it’s along the lines of how FaceBook and the old Twitter (plus Google and Apple) aligned with various Washington agencies over the past decade.

Then there’s CATL. The company dominates the battery market for all electric vehicles. Suspect that the move to restrict the company in the United States is more about regulatory capture than anything else. If you can’t compete, then simply block your competitor from accessing your market. The same tactic was used to ban drones from DJI for the expressed, albeit unstated, aim of assisting Skydio.

America needs to do better. Putting up barriers in the name of “national security” is nothing but weak and reflects – at least to me – some very late state Empire antics.