From a comfortable position thousands of miles away from the White House (he has reportedly been spending a lot of time in Europe lately), former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has embraced a stance toward Beijing that’s somewhere to the right of John Bolton. Bannon calls himself a China “superhawk”, which helps make President Trump’s tough stance look moderate by comparison, while pro-business negotiators like Steven Mnuchin look like sinophiles.
Bannon used two recent interviews with CNBC to explain his hostility toward Beijing. His argument boils down to this: for too long, Washington has allowed Beijing to get away with its anticompetitive subsidies and market protections, while the MSS steals whatever technology isn’t deliberately handed over by American companies hoping to enter the world’s largest growth market. Instead of fighting back, Washington has sat idly by as American money and corporations helped transform the Chinese economy, giving the Chinese the tools to stand up to the US.
