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While outside China, among activists, politicians and academics, there is a distinct recognition of Xinjiang and Tibet as sites of conflict and violence, apologists for Chinese colonization argue that there is no ‘Xinjiang problem’ nor any ‘Tibet question’. Thus, the Chinese government insists that the ‘so-called “Tibet issue” is by no means an ethnic, religious and human rights issue; rather, it is the Western anti-China forces’ attempt to restrain, split, and demonize China’ (Information Office 2009a: 44–45). Similarly, they blame the World Uyghur Congress or the East Turkestan Islamic Movement for all the problems in Xinjiang. Yet Chinese state paranoia around internal dissent from the colonizing discourse and practice is high, and reflects a deep insecurity within the Chinese nationstate project (Topgyal 2016). As Callahan (2004, 209) argues, ‘Fragmentation constitutes one of the few political crimes left in China; the worst epithet is not capitalist or counterrevolutionary, but splittist.’ This fear of separatism is deployed by the state to justify securitization of life and militarization of place in Xinjiang and Tibet. Alleged (and in recent years sometimes real) acts of extremism, separatism and terrorism by Uyghurs and Tibetans are evoked as existential threats to the stability of the rising China. While it is understandable for the colonizers to seek to legitimize their territorial, political, social and religious control by using the tropes of paternalism and progress, as scholars of China and its occupied peoples, it is important for us to not be complicit. Rather than seeing colonialism as a thing of the European past, we should identify its present-day avatars and critique it. The articulation of the concept of coloniality of power offers the prospect of developing a global paradigm of the colonial relationship that will provide a deeper theoretical understanding of the powerful resistance that continues to emerge in subaltern communities and nations around the world. (Allen 2005, 10) While Uyghurs and Tibetans continue to resist as well as to accommodate to the colonial system, as scholars we have our own positionalities to consider. The question for scholars studying minoritized ethno-national peoples in general, and Uyghurs and Tibetans in particular, is our complicity, or not, with the Chinese nation-state’s political project of depoliticizing ethno-national identities to serve the colonial purpose of paternalistic and militarized control. If we question the claims of ethno-national peoples to their separate identities on the grounds that these are imaginary or imagined (e.g. Sautman 2000, 2006a), do we also ask the same questions of the Chinese nationalist project? If we argue that Uyghur or Tibetan nationalism is imagined but then take for granted Chinese sovereign claims over Tibet or Xinjiang that legitimize the use of dehumanization, securitization, militarization and violence over individual and collective Uyghurs and Tibetans, we are not neutral but siding with the powerful. The framework of colonialism thus remains useful and even vital to understand and critique present day practices.

Contrary to the Sinophobic as well as the Sinophilic reduction of China to Confucian values in Western media, the country is a site of plurality, and contestation with and within borderlands plays an important role in generating fear of instability (Duara 1995; Saxer and Zhang 2014; Smith Finley 2013). While categories such as ‘Han’ are themselves contested (Joniak-Lüthi 2015; Mullaney et al. 2012), and all ethno-nationalist identities are constructed, it would be problematic to assert that all voices matter equally in China. As Jacobs (2008, 586) points out, ‘Within this polyphony of voices, some speakers were capable of speaking louder than others.’ Some voices are allowed to be heard, while others are suppressed. For example, a Han Chinese Communist party leader pontificating in public about the effectiveness of state minority policy would be heard more loudly in China than an incarcerated Uyghur dissident intellectual. During the 2009 unrest in Xinjiang, protests by Uyghurs were met by a massive police crackdown, while protests by Han led only (and not immediately) to the removal of senior government officials. The representation of Uyghurs and Tibetans as separatists or terrorists has direct bearing on the life and livelihood of individual Uyghurs and Tibetans, while representation by Uyghurs and Tibetans of the Han majority as culturally threatening has very little significance for the majority. The security of the state is closely aligned to the security of the majority; Cliff (2012) highlights this in the case of Xinjiang. It is crucial to keep in mind these asymmetries while appreciating pluralities. The asymmetries disproportionately affect those considered minorities, for they carry the burden of being part of the nation while also being seen as subservient. As Gladney (2004, 367) highlights, the ‘rise in nationalist rhetoric in China may have the greatest implications for its internal colonial others, its subaltern subjects’. What is it about Xinjiang and Tibet that makes them sites of greater securitization and militarization? One conspicuous fact affecting Chinese national security is the territory– population disconnect. Han Chinese, the majority and the dominant ethno-national people, occupy only a portion of territory of the modern Chinese state; a significant part of the territory lies in the homelands of other ethno-national peoples, including Uyghurs, Tibetans and Mongols, many of whom contest the reduction of their status to being mere minorities within China. The disconnect between cartographic desires and the historical-cultural reality of Han Chinese nationalism was obvious from the very beginning of the twentieth century and has been a constant and significant source of insecurity for the Chinese state. The process of transformation of imperial China into a nation-state had already started in the Late Qing (Cosmo 1998; Leibold 2007; Perdue 2005) and continued with the Nationalists, Republicans and Communists. This explains Sun Yat Sen’s formulation of the five fingers of the Chinese nation – Han, Hui (the term then subsuming all Muslim peoples), Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu – and subsequent formulation of nationality policies by the Communists. Creating a unitary and stable single nation-state involved mixing the politics of recognition of nationalities for the purpose of managing difference, and the politics of securitization and repression for the purpose of denationalizing and depoliticizing difference (see Radnitz and Roberts 2013 for a discussion in the context of Xinjiang). Rather than accept the protests and demands of Uyghurs and Tibetans as political, the state invariably securitizes them as a threat to the stability of the nation’s body politic. While some have argued that this securitization generates more grievances (Holdstock 2015) and brings neither human security for the people affected nor stability for the state (Clarke 2010; Steele and Kuo 2007), there remains insufficient analysis of why China does what it does. Even when various explanations are provided, ‘the C word’ is missing, for the authors tend to take for granted the legitimacy of the Chinese nation-state. For instance, Purbrick (2017, 236) studies China’s ‘counter-terrorist efforts’ as part of ‘wider motivations relating to domestic stability, foreign policy, geo-political relations, economic growth, and nationalism’.

In the past five years, the U.S. Congress has played an important role in designing and implementing America’s response to the challenge posed by a more powerful and nationalistic China. By the mid-2010s, it was apparent that China’s military modernization, aggressive (sometimes illegal) efforts to acquire advanced technology, protectionist economic policies, territorial encroachments, and other actions constituted a serious challenge, especially in the face of predictions that China might surpass the United States in economic output. Congress has responded accordingly, often working closely with the executive branch. Members have debated and passed a variety of measures aimed at strengthening the United States for a long-term competition and confrontation with China. They have introduced bills on a myriad of China-related issues, held a far-reaching set of hearings on the country, and increasingly raised China from the bully pulpit. Much of what Congress has achieved has been necessary, although there is a risk that it could go too far.

Congressional concern about Beijing is of course one part of a broad trend in Washington’s policy discussion, and congressional action is one element in America’s response to China’s rise. But Congress still matters. The nature of congressional foreign policy powers gives it an important role to play in the design and implementation of the U.S. approach to China. The executive branch may often lead on foreign policy, but many key competencies for a strategy for long-term competition with China are subject to congressional legislation or influence. For example, defense spending, investment, and trade policy are all affected by congressional budgetary and other statutory powers.1

The result of all this was a nationwide economic downturn that, rightly or not, was blamed on ruinous policies enacted by democratically-elected legislatures. In 1787, political dissatisfaction with the economic situation led to a convention convened in Philadelphia to remedy this state of affairs. The new Constitution it proposed, addressed debtor relief laws with the Contracts Clause of Article I, Section 10, which barred states from "impairing the obligation of contracts." To address the problems of interstate trade barriers and the ability to enter into trade agreements, it included the Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Moving the power to regulate interstate commerce to Congress would enable the creation of a free trade zone among the several states; removing the power to regulate international trade from the states would enable the president to negotiate, and Congress to approve, treaties to open foreign markets to American-made goods. The international commerce power also gave Congress the power to abolish the slave trade with other nations, which it did effective on January 1, 1808, the very earliest date allowed by the Constitution.

But the federal judiciary has no authority to alter or annul a statute. The power of judicial review is more limited: It allows a court to decline to enforce a statute, and to enjoin the executive from enforcing that statute. But the judicially disapproved statute continues to exist as a law until it is repealed by the legislature that enacted it, even as it goes unenforced by the judiciary or the executive. And it is always possible that a future court might overrule the decision that declared the statute unconstitutional, thereby liberating the executive to resume enforcing the statute against anyone who has violated it. Judicial review is not a power to suspend or “strike down” legislation; it is a judicially imposed non-enforcement policy that lasts only as long as the courts adhere to the constitutional objections that persuaded them to thwart the statute’s enforcement. When judges or elected officials mistakenly assume that a court decision has canceled or revoked a duly enacted statute, they commit the “writ-of-erasure fallacy” — the fallacy that equates judicial review with a veto-like power to “strike down” legislation or delay its effective start date. This article identifies the origins of the fallacy, describes the ways in which the writ-of-erasure mindset has improperly curtailed the enforcement of statutes, and explores the implications that follow when judicial review is (correctly) understood as a temporary non-enforcement policy that leaves the disapproved statute in effect.

“IP protection has been part of the trade deal with China, but everyone I talk to doesn’t believe it will have any effect,” he says. “The Chinese will agree and then continue to cheat. So, we need to think of something beyond bilateral trade deals, and the chance for partnership is out there.” Instead, Lewis says the United States will need to partner with others to prevent Chinese investment or involvement until it changes how it acquires intellectual property and shields its domestic firms from competition. In conversations with representatives from the European Union and other regions, Lewis says they also said they need to tighten their controls on Chinese investment. “The Japanese feel that way. The Australians feel that way. The Europeans are moving in that direction, so China’s behavior is causing concern for everyone,” Lewis says. “That’s an opportunity for the [Trump] administration. They haven’t been able to take advantage of it yet, but this isn’t just the United States.” Ultimately, China must be required to honor its international obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), he adds. “Countries that are members of WTO need to hold China accountable for its lax enforcement of IP rules,” Lewis says. “I don’t see that happening, but that’s what it would take—for people to say this kind of behavior is unacceptable.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his economic team see “no need to hastily rewrite the federal government’s antitrust rules,” drawing a battle line with leading Democratic presidential candidates on an issue that has increasingly drawn the attention of economists, legal scholars and other academics. In their annual Economic Report of the President, released on Thursday, Mr. Trump and his advisers effectively dismiss an emerging line of economic research that finds large American companies increasingly dominate industries like telecommunications and tech, stifling competition and hurting consumers. That research, which President Barack Obama’s economic team championed in 2016, has become fodder for presidential candidates like Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont to call for breaking up big tech companies. In its report, the Trump administration contends that the studies that demonstrate rising market concentration in the economy are flawed — and that the rise of large companies may not be a bad thing for consumers. “Concentration may be driven by economies of scale and scope that can lower costs for consumers,” the report reads. “Also, successful firms tend to grow, and it is important that antitrust enforcement and competition policy not be used to punish firms for their competitive success.” That assessment was consistent with the bright picture that administration officials painted in the report on the health of the economy. They forecast growth of 3.1 percent for the year, measuring fourth quarter over fourth quarter, although that prediction relies on Congress passing a large-scale infrastructure plan and other policy initiatives that appear unlikely in an election year. Without those, the growth forecast falls below 3 percent. This year’s report takes direct aim at the 2016 report presented by Mr. Obama and his Council of Economic Advisers, then led by the Harvard economist Jason Furman, which warned that rising market concentration was hampering economic dynamism and exacerbating inequality. The Trump administration has approved some high-profile corporate mergers, like the marriage of Sprint and T-Mobile, while trying to block others, like AT&T’s purchase of Time Warner. In their report, Mr. Trump’s advisers say federal agencies already have the tools they need to evaluate those mergers and other antitrust cases. It laments that some Americans have come to hold the “mistaken, simplistic view that ‘Big Is Bad.’” New research released Thursday by the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics offers new evidence for why populist politicians like Mr. Trump should be concerned with whether market concentration is in fact rising in the economy: The rise hurts blue-collar workers, like those employed in factories, more than everyone else. The research, from the University of Chicago economists Greg Kaplan and Piotr Zoch, does not seek to quantify whether concentration has gone up or down in recent years. Instead, it studies what happens to particular classes of workers when companies increasingly dominate a market and have more power to raise prices. It finds that some workers — those who make things — are hurt in when their employer dominates an industry. The workers who sell or market or design things gain. “It’s leading to an increase in the incomes of white-collar workers,” Mr. Kaplan said in an interview, “at the expense of blue-collar workers.” There’s a relatively simple explanation for why that is. When companies have more pricing power, they make fewer products and sell each one for a higher profit margin. In that case, it’s far more valuable to a company to be an employee working in so-called expansionary positions, like marketing, than in production jobs, like working a factory line — because there’s less production to be done and more salesmanship. Mr. Trump has repeatedly highlighted his administration’s record of delivering for the production workers he targeted in his 2016 campaign promises. The new economic report is no exception.In recent decades, the report says, the government disproportionately regulated industries like manufacturing “that offer fulfilling, blue collar jobs for the majority of Americans who do not have a college degree.” “These misguided policy decisions,” it continues, “imposed real-world costs that created barriers to success and prosperity for hardworking Americans. Those days are over.”

It’s 120 days until Election Day, and our model thinks the presidential election could go either way. Right now, President Joe Biden is favored to win in 512 out of 1,000 of our model’s simulations of how the election could go, while former President Donald Trump wins in 484 of our simulations. There is still a small chance of the pure chaos scenario: In 4 simulations, no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives.

It might not seem like it based on the panicked reaction to Biden’s poor debate performance nearly two weeks ago, but the election is still a considerable ways away. This means there is a lot of uncertainty about where the polls will end up on Nov. 5. In turn, the 538 election model puts a healthy amount of weight on non-polling factors such as economic growth and political indicators. Today these indicators suggest an outcome closer to a 3-point Biden win — clear in the opposite direction of national polls.

The need for the United States to counter and outcompete an increasingly assertive People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as a rare point of agreement between Democrats and Republicans in recent years. This poses interesting questions about U.S. foreign policy towards China. Is this new China consensus substantive enough to produce meaningful legislative action? Or, as some critics argue, is this consensus partial at best? Moreover, why has bipartisanship emerged on China when political polarization undermines cross-aisle cooperation in so many other areas? Our recent article, ‘Bipartisanship on China in a Polarized America,’ published in the peer-reviewed journal International Relations, addresses these questions by systematically analyzing China-related legislation and U.S. legislators’ messaging to citizens about China on social media over the last decade. We find that the new China consensus has led to a sharp increase in consequential China-related legislation obtaining bipartisan support. Moreover, we argue that this bipartisan trend emerged largely in 2017–2018 in response to developments that convinced U.S. lawmakers of the PRC’s growing threat—geopolitical, economic, and ideological—to U.S. predominance in the international order. The Evolution of China Legislation America’s intense political polarization has stymied productive cooperation on many political issues and it would be unsurprising if such polarization stymied China policy as well. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, “The Dysfunctional Superpower: Can a Divided America Deter China and Russia?,” Robert Gates makes this case, arguing that fractured elites have failed to convince America of the China threat and articulate a long-term strategy to counter it. Certainly, Democrats and Republicans frequently blast each other over China policy. Democrats criticized the Trump administration for launching a damaging trade war, treating Taiwan as expendable, and ceding global leadership to the PRC in various areas. Republicans hit back by accusing Democrats of being “soft on China”—a key line of attack against President Biden. Recent academic studies point to a polarized America not unifying over China. One study argues that polarization in government weakened the implementation of President Obama’s “pivot to Asia.” Another finds that, unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the rising threat perception of China has not had a unifying effect on American public opinion. Moreover, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs published a report entitled “Republicans and Democrats Split on China Policy” based on a public opinion survey fielded in late 2021. Yet, our data show that Democratic and Republican lawmakers are undeniably cooperating more on legislation aimed at countering and outcompeting the PRC. First, since 2019, there has been a boom in China bills obtaining strong bipartisan support, which our study quantifies. Second, many of these bills go beyond just “making a statement” to mandate that government agencies take concrete and sometimes expensive action. And third, new China bills are not limited to any one issue area in the bilateral relationship, but rather reflect a need to counter and outcompete the PRC in five broad areas: trade and investment, human rights, technology, diplomatic and military affairs, and public health and the environment. Arguably, the most consequential piece of legislation is the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which passed with some bipartisan support and was signed by President Biden in August 2022. Among other goals, the act aims to increase U.S. competitiveness with China in science and technology and to counter the PRC’s growing geopolitical influence globally. Figure 1 from our paper shows the growth in bills focused on China obtaining support from at least 10 percent of legislators of both parties in at least one chamber. (Nearly all of these also received support from 25 percent of legislators of both parties.) Our data covers the 113th through 117th congresses (2013 – 2023).

Figure 1. New Bipartisan Bills Mandate Action on China

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee’s version of the farm bill will not get support from U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing), who chairs the Senate committee responsible for handling the appropriations bill. Stabenow told the Michigan Advance after an event in Lansing Wednesday morning that this farm bill process has been the “most frustrating” of her career. “I’ve actually been involved in six farm bills and led on three of them, and this has been the most frustrating time,” said Stabenow, who chairs the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, and is retiring this term. “Because it’s so much more partisan than usual and particularly around food assistance.” The farm bill is a $1.5 trillion federal legislation package that creates policy and appropriates funding to food, agriculture and conservation programs. The bill expires every five years, and the most recently passed legislation was set to expire in September 2023. The 2018 farm bill received an extension through the end of September 2024, putting pressure on lawmakers to finish a deal before the November election. The framework from GOP senators reflected the GOP-led House panel’s version, which passed with votes from every Republican and four Democrats on the committee. Stabenow said the version is “just not balanced.” “The politics of food has gotten, very, very, very partisan and very, very disheartening to me,” Stabenow said. “Because traditionally, we’ve been able to come together around those issues.” U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), a member of the House Agriculture Committee, told the Advance after a May 31 event in Traverse City that she doesn’t believe that GOP cuts to food assistance will make it into the final bill. “This was the thing that was so hard about last week, is that the farm bill draft in the House had a bunch of bills that I care about and I voted against it. Because they just slashed food assistance — they slashed SNAP, so food stamps, all kinds of agricultural programs for our farmers markets, school lunch programs, you name it,” Slotkin said. “So I couldn’t vote for it. I think that it will not pass muster; those kinds of things will not make it into law — most importantly because we have Debbie Stabenow as the chairwoman of the Senate Ag Committee and she’s absolutely not going to stand for that.”

In the weeks since the US military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have spoken passionately about the need to more effectively compete with Beijing. A resolution condemning China for the balloon incident passed the House in an unanimous vote of 419 to 0. Joe Biden has similarly expressed hope that efforts to strengthen America’s global competitiveness in response to a rising China can unite Democrats and Republicans in an era defined by bitter partisanship. “Today, we’re in the strongest position in decades to compete with China or anyone else in the world,” Biden said in his State of the Union address earlier this month. “Let’s be clear: winning the competition with China should unite all of us.” I don’t believe we have a clear consensus on the precise mix of policies that are necessary to address this challenge Patricia Kim, US-China relations expert at the Brookings Institute The new House select committee on China will hold its first primetime public hearing on Tuesday, and the panel’s supporters are optimistic its work will provide a rare opportunity for bipartisan cooperation in the divided Congress. But while there’s widespread agreement among policymakers and lawmakers in Washington over the need to better compete with China, there is no prevailing consensus on how to do so. Some experts also fear this kumbaya moment in Washington could escalate tensions with Beijing and increase the risk of conflict. “There is a bipartisan consensus on the fact that China poses a broad challenge to the United States across multiple domains,” said Patricia Kim, an expert on US-China relations at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “I don’t believe we have a clear consensus on the precise mix of policies that are necessary to address this challenge.”

A committee walks the ‘fine line’

In the past five years, the U.S. Congress has played an important role in designing and implementing America’s response to the challenge posed by a more powerful and nationalistic China. By the mid-2010s, it was apparent that China’s military modernization, aggressive (sometimes illegal) efforts to acquire advanced technology, protectionist economic policies, territorial encroachments, and other actions constituted a serious challenge, especially in the face of predictions that China might surpass the United States in economic output. Congress has responded accordingly, often working closely with the executive branch. Members have debated and passed a variety of measures aimed at strengthening the United States for a long-term competition and confrontation with China. They have introduced bills on a myriad of China-related issues, held a far-reaching set of hearings on the country, and increasingly raised China from the bully pulpit. Much of what Congress has achieved has been necessary, although there is a risk that it could go too far. Congressional concern about Beijing is of course one part of a broad trend in Washington’s policy discussion, and congressional action is one element in America’s response to China’s rise. But Congress still matters. The nature of congressional foreign policy powers gives it an important role to play in the design and implementation of the U.S. approach to China. The executive branch may often lead on foreign policy, but many key competencies for a strategy for long-term competition with China are subject to congressional legislation or influence. For example, defense spending, investment, and trade policy are all affected by congressional budgetary and other statutory powers.1 Members of Congress have somewhat different policy preferences when it comes to China, but there has been a surprising degree of bipartisanship in their assessments of the threat that China poses to the United States.2 As Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) observed in a speech in March 2022, a new consensus is emerging around the idea that “China is the most formidable near-peer adversary our nation has ever faced.”3 This is a notable statement, given the magnitude of the threat the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and imperial Japan once posed to the free world. Members’ policy preferences vary in the emphasis they place on the military, ideological, and economic aspects of the U.S.-China competition. They also vary based on how far members are willing to go on these issues, the degree of urgency they express, and their attitudes toward the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Some members take a view of China reminiscent of president Ronald Reagan’s view of the Soviet Union in his first term, when he called it the “evil empire” and greatly increased U.S. defense spending. For these members, there are grave, existential stakes for America in the unfolding competition. They see America as locked in an intense ideological rivalry with China, which they say aims to supplant the United States as the world’s superpower. They warn that unless America acts now, and forcefully, to counter China’s rise, the country will find itself hemmed in by China’s military, economic, and technological power in just a few years. Other members focus more heavily on the economic aspects of the competition. These economic hawks assess that the countries’ economic relationship is badly in need of reform. They agree with the “neo-Reaganites” that the problem is serious but focus on the need for measures to strengthen America’s domestic economic competitiveness in order to better compete with China. They hope that a healthier economic relationship will reduce other sources of tension and help stabilize U.S.-China relations over the long term. There also appear to be some moderates who share concern about Beijing’s actions but are less ready to make China the framing focus of U.S. foreign policy or rule out the possibility that China might still rise peacefully. These moderates, however, find themselves on the back foot in the face of a surge of political pressure to demonstrate toughness on China—a policy which, as one congressional staffer explained to us, has become a proxy for how members see America’s role in the world. To be tough on China is widely seen as reflecting a pro-American toughness that can appeal to voters on both sides of the aisle. Moderates may also hesitate to critique the consensus because China is one of the last remaining areas of bipartisanship on the Hill. As might be expected, Congress’s response to China has been driven at least in part by domestic politics. In the past five years, those pushing for a more aggressive response have mostly had the upper hand and those who might prefer a more moderate approach have found themselves on the back foot, concerned that attempts to moderate could be portrayed as weakness or as un-American to voters. Even as Congress enacts necessary legislation to protect America’s vital interests in the face of China’s rise, there is thus a risk of overshooting. Efforts to stabilize the relationship and find an acceptable modus vivendi with China—one that protects vital U.S. interests while avoiding war—could suffer. Moreover, Beijing is almost certainly listening to what Congress says, and the tone of congressional debate over China could contribute to suspicion, misperception, and thus escalation from China’s leaders. In this case, both sides will incur greater risks and costs across economic, financial, military, and human spheres. Moderate voices may need to speak with a louder voice to reduce the chances that Congress overshoots a well-reasoned policy response to the challenge that China poses. A bipartisan visit to Beijing in October 2023 led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) suggests that some members now appreciate the need for such an approach, and this should be a welcome sign. Our research combines quantitative analysis of the large volume of bills that have been introduced in Congress in recent sessions with qualitative analysis of the main ideas and character of the debate, especially as expressed in the positions of congressional thought leaders. To understand this debate, we have relied on the Congressional Record, articles, speeches, and reporting on members’ views, as well as informal interviews with congressional staff from both parties. One challenge we encountered is that some members are more vocal in public about their views on China, and this may create bias in our sample. As researchers, however, we have to rely on these public statements, even though we recognize that they may or may not tell the whole story, and members who have said less in public may still hold developed views on China that differ from those of the more outspoken. Section one of this paper describes how congressional attention to China has increased in the past five years and outlines the major legislative muscle movements that have shaped U.S.-China relations. Section two then maps the thinking of key congressional thought leaders on China. Congressional Action on China Since 2020 Congressional attention to China has exploded since 2018. The number of bills introduced that Congress.gov codes as being about China increased sixfold between 2013 and 2021 (the 113th and 116th Congresses). During the 117th Congress, the most recent session to be completed, more bills were introduced on China than on the entire Middle East.4 In the process, Congress has moved to strengthen U.S. ties to Taiwan, authorized billions more in military spending for defeating China’s military, restricted China’s access to semiconductors, questioned the legitimacy of the CCP, and supported executive branch efforts to build a broad anti-China regional and global coalition. Since 2021, Congress has worked with but also been more aggressive than the administration of Joe Biden, whose approach has recently focused on restoring diplomatic communication with China. Very few voices in Congress have pushed for cooperation with China or taken a strong and vocal stance in favor of diplomacy, with the exception of the bipartisan delegation that Senator Schumer led to Beijing in October 2023. Many members believe there is still much more that needs to be done to defend America against China’s threats, judging from legislative initiatives and statements by congressional leaders as of fall 2023. The surge in Congress’s tough on China attitudes began with the 116th Congress in 2019,5 and they accelerated in response to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when anti-China sentiment in the United States intensified. For example, the Pew Research Center found that nearly 73 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of China in July 2020, a 26 percent increase from 2018.6 An April 2020 Politico poll found that 31 percent of U.S. voters saw China as an “enemy,” an 11 percent increase from that January, before COVID-19 had spread widely in the United States.7 These broader trends are mirrored in the rise of China-related bills in recent sessions of Congress (see figure 1). Most pieces of draft China legislation that have come to a vote in the House of Representatives or the Senate passed with little or no debate. In part this is because congressional staff negotiate and revise the bills before any vote. But given the divisions in Congress on so many other policy issues, it is still striking that so much China-related legislation has passed with bipartisan support. For example, Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 (S. 1838) and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (H.R. 6256), two big pieces of human rights legislation, nearly unanimously and with bipartisan sponsorship in both houses. The same was true for the Secure Equipment Act of 2021 (H.R. 3919), which became law during the first session of the 117th Congress and prevents the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from issuing licenses to Chinese state-backed telecommunications companies. In the House, the Promoting United States International Leadership in 5G Act of 2021 (H.R. 1934) passed 405 to 20 during the 117th Congress, and the CHIPS and Science Act (H.R. 4346), which passed with bipartisan support in 2023 despite simultaneous high levels of partisan rancor. All Republicans and 146 Democrats also voted in favor of establishing the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Human Rights Figure 2 shows the extent to which Congress has increased its attention on China’s human rights abuses.8 Ten years ago, before Washington’s attention fixated on China, most legislation on the country focused on trade or human rights issues. Leading members of Congress often sought to highlight the issues of Tibet and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre as a means of pushing back against what they perceived as the executive branch’s permissiveness on China. Congressional scrutiny of China’s human rights repression broadened in 2019, however, in response to Beijing’s repression of massive citizen protests in Hong Kong. Congress passed legislation over the second half of 2019 and in 2020 that condemned the repression, banned the export of certain weapons to the Hong Kong Police Force, and authorized the White House to revoke Hong Kong’s special trade status. At the same time, Congress responded to China’s mistreatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, with the House and Senate both introducing bipartisan bills in 2020 and 2021 to sanction Chinese government officials and prohibit the imports of goods manufactured with forced labor in Xinjiang. According to Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who chaired one of the key hearings on the Senate version of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, “Nowhere is [China’s] assault on individual freedom and basic human rights more comprehensive and more atrocious than against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.” Senator Rubio echoed his Democratic counterpart: “The crimes against humanity and genocide that are taking place at the hands of the CCP demand an urgent international response.”9 Some businesses pushed back against these bills, expressing concerns about the breadth of the restrictions, but both parties in Congress nevertheless ultimately backed the legislation, as did the White House. The legislation that President Biden signed into law in December 2021 thus prohibited imports of “any goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part” in Xinjiang unless they are proven not to be linked to forced labor—a remit with far-reaching implications for a range of U.S. industries.

China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property is undercutting small businesses across the country, according to Admiral Dennis Blair, co-chair of The IP Commission. Blair told FOX Business’ Ashley Webster that a small sprinkler irrigation company in Walla Walla, Washington, Nelson Irrigation Corporation, had its propriety design stolen by a Chinese company. “They are now selling them back over into the American market, over the internet, using titles like Chinese Nelson,” he said. President Donald Trump authorized a plan to slap new tariffs worth $50 billion on Chinese goods Thursday, targeting 1,300 items. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimates that the U.S. economic cost from counterfeit goods, pirated software and the theft of trade secrets by China is as high as $600 billion annually. Blair said China’s intellectual theft was perceived in the past as an “adolescent phase” of a developing economy. However, the world’s second-largest economy has advanced its tactic of intellectual property abuses. “We face Chinese companies with a choice here, Ashley. Either you steal our property or you can use our market,” he said. “You can’t do both.”

Both Republican and Democratic politicians have been sounding alarms about market power in the United States, arguing that a few companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google have become too dominant. In July 2021, the White House issued an executive order and statement doubling down on antitrust law enforcement, with a promise to reign in “corporate consolidation” and “bad mergers” in the interest of US consumers.A growing body of research supports this notion, pointing to a regulatory leniency over the past few decades that is driving concentration across US markets and segments. Stanford’s C. Lanier Benkard and Ali Yurukoglu and Chicago Booth’s Anthony Lee Zhang provide more support for this claim—in part. The researchers find abundant evidence of rising concentration at the broader market level, with more mergers, fewer players, and a rise in organizations with high market share. But they find a different picture at the level of individual products, where more concentration has led to more competition. Monopolies are generally considered to be bad for consumers and the economy. When markets are dominated by a small number of big players, there’s a danger that these players can abuse their power to increase prices to customers. This kind of excessive market power can also lead to less innovation, losses in quality, and higher inflation. Thus, US legislators have historically sought to limit the market power of large corporations. Three major antitrust laws have been passed by Congress over the past century, all aimed at prohibiting price-fixing, preventing monopolies, and driving free competition as the rule of trade. But the discussion about concentration has traditionally centered on the number of companies operating and competing in different segments, with less attention paid to the situation at the individual product level. When there are fewer players producing goods and services, does it follow that there are fewer goods and services to choose from—and therefore less choice for consumers in terms of prices? The researchers analyzed newly available data from MRI-Simmons, a provider of attitudinal and behavioral US consumer insights, to reexamine and reassess trends in concentration in US product markets between 1994 and 2019. Indeed, they see divergent patterns emerge when it comes to companies and products. In the area of household goods, for instance, corporate concentration has increased. Procter & Gamble and Phoenix Brands, among other larger companies, have systematically acquired the makers of brands such as Tide, Cheer, Ajax, and Fab in the detergents category.

Link turn

What is one thing Verizon, The Walt Disney Company, and Southwest Airlines have in common? All conduct business in highly concentrated industries, in which a handful of major players have wielded increasingly concentrated power and market share over recent decades.

As you might recall from high school economics or a certain board game, monopolistic markets can damage the broader economy. After all, if one entity in an industry wields outsized market power, then you’re likely to see prices rise, workers get the shaft, and consumer surplus begin to fall.

Have you ever wondered how much intellectual property theft costs the U.S. economy? The unauthorized use, reproduction or distribution of someone else's creations, inventions or ideas poses a threat to innovation and has significant economic consequences.

As a publisher, my company brings client's ideas to the marketplace every single day. Oftentimes, these ideas represent decades of work and millions of dollars of research. This intellectual property has serious value, especially in light of the S&P 500. In fact, according to the Visual Capitalist, "Intangible assets currently account for 90% of the index’s total assets." This means that much of your company's value is not found in physical assets but rather in intellectual property.

When I became CEO of AliveCor, a health tech startup dedicated to heart health, little did I know that we would spend years engaged in a legal fight to protect our intellectual property from one of the largest companies in the world. But our David vs. Goliath battle against Apple has even reached President Joe Biden’s desk–and, now, the halls of Congress. Some people ask me why we haven’t given up, given Apple’s massive war chest and well-documented history of copying other firms’ ideas. As The Washington Post once reported, “Some apps have simply buckled under the pressure.” But this isn’t just about us. It’s about the entire tech ecosystem. It’s a question of whether startups–and small businesses of all kinds–can stand up for their rights and win. And because we focus specifically on health tech, it’s no exaggeration to say that when it comes to technologies developed by companies like ours, lives hang in the balance. Here’s what the case is all about, in a nutshell. AliveCor pioneered electrocardiogram technologies (ECG) for smartphones and smartwatches. In 2016 we launched Kardia Band, an FDA-cleared, medical-grade wearable ECG. The responses were wonderful, with people saying it helped to transform their health and their lives. But two years later, Apple announced that it had created its own technology–and made its new watches incompatible with a central feature of Kardia Band.Equipped with patents, scientific reports, and other evidence, we fought back. Since then, Apple has tried all sorts of maneuvers to fend us off, including bombarding us with expensive litigation. Nevertheless, we’ve been winning before the International Trade Commission (ITC). The agency’s role includes investigating and making determinations involving intellectual property (IP) rights in such cases. The ITC found Apple to be in violation of the IP protecting our vital heart monitoring technology. As a result, the commission ultimately called for a ban on Apple importing its infringing watches into the United States. The corporate behemoth tried to get President Biden to veto that ban, but fortunately, he declined to do so. We’re not alone in this kind of fight. Another medical technology company, Masimo, has been engaged in a similar battle, and also won before the ITC. Again, Biden refused to veto an Apple Watch import ban. But rather than attempt to rectify its wrongs, Apple is trying to use its lobbying power to change the ITC. The company is lobbying Congress to “make some patent owners ineligible to bring complaints before the ITC,” and seeking “to influence the language of committee reports that could affect how the agency levels punishments.” Apple is also trying another desperate, last-ditch effort. It got the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board to invalidate some of our patents, but we’re confident that our appeal will reverse that decision. Apple is attempting to argue that an ITC ban on Apple Watch imports would deprive people of a device that is crucial to their health. However, the commission has previously dismissed this argument as inaccurate. In fact, the opposite is true: Allowing Apple to get away with continued infringement will kill innovation and endanger people’s health. Health tech startups rely on investor funding to save lives. People are willing to invest in these new ideas because they expect that some will succeed, so they’ll recoup their investments and see a future payoff. If large corporations can simply copy these technologies, then investors will lose the confidence and incentive to provide funding at various stages. Investors and small business leaders need to know that the rules fairly and reliably protect the Davids in the same way that they protect the Goliaths.Our battle against Apple has always taken place on an uneven field. The intervention of Congress on Apple’s behalf would make things even worse. President Biden stood up to Apple’s bullying tactics–and Congress should do the same.

Over the past decade, some of Apple’s biggest regulatory headaches have come from a little-known federal agency called the U.S. International Trade Commission. The agency’s patent judges have found Apple guilty of appropriating innovations in smartphones, semiconductors and smartwatches. And recently, they forced Apple to remove a health feature from Apple Watches. Now the tech giant is pushing back. While it defends itself from patent complaints before the I.T.C., Apple has begun lobbying lawmakers to help rewrite the agency’s rules. The company has been campaigning across Washington for legislation that would make some patent owners ineligible to bring complaints before the I.T.C. It has sought to influence the language of committee reports that could affect how the agency levels punishments. And it has added to its lobbying might by enlisting one of the agency’s former commissioners. The lobbying effort comes as Apple is enmeshed in a multiyear legal battle with two U.S. medical device makers over technology in the Apple Watch. The companies, AliveCor and Masimo, filed complaints in the I.T.C. against Apple in 2021 for appropriating innovations they had developed to measure the heart’s electrical activity and people’s blood oxygen levels. After losing both cases, Apple this year removed the technology to measure blood oxygen in its watches, which infringed on Masimo’s patent. It is appealing the I.T.C.’s decision. A similar punishment is on hold as court proceedings continue related to the I.T.C.’s finding that Apple infringed on AliveCor’s innovations with the Apple Watch’s electrocardiogram feature. Apple is trying to blunt the agency’s signature power. Unlike traditional patent courts, where juries or judges typically issue fines, the I.T.C.’s judges can discipline a company that violates a patent by banning imports of the infringing product. Because Apple makes all its signature devices overseas, a block on the import of its devices would be perilous to the company. To avoid that penalty in the future, the company says, it wants the agency to put the public interest of a product ahead of a ban. The company is betting that the court would then give more credence to Apple’s argument that Americans would be harmed by an import ban because they would lose access to the communication and health features in iPhones and Apple Watches. An Apple spokeswoman said the existing law requires that the I.T.C. consider how the public interest could be affected before ordering an import ban. But it said public data showed that the agency had made public-interest evaluations in only one-fifth of cases it had heard since 2010. As a result, its lobbyists have been talking with White House and congressional leaders about the I.T.C., as well as other issues such as privacy and domestic manufacturing. Adam Mossoff, a patent law expert and a professor at George Mason University, said Apple was misinterpreting the law, which requires the I.T.C. to block a product if it finds that it infringes on a patent. An import ban is supposed to be overruled only if there’s a proven threat to health or safety, he said. Blocking sales of an Apple device wouldn’t qualify as harmful. “The problem with their lobbying is that they’re trying to neuter a well-functioning court by closing its doors to Americans who have had their rights infringed,” he said. When Congress set up what became the I.T.C. in 1916, it wanted to protect American innovation by allowing the U.S. government to ban the import of products with stolen technology. But as manufacturing moved overseas, the federal agency’s court system became a forum for disputes between U.S. companies. The I.T.C.’s judges, who are appointed by the commission, hold hearings with different standards for patent disputes than those that govern District Court cases. The cases are fast and compressed and can culminate with the judge’s punishing a patent abuser by blocking its products. Before a ban is put into effect, a company that’s found guilty can appeal to the White House for a reprieve. But it’s rare for an administration, which oversees the agency, to go against a judge’s recommendation. Apple has become the pre-eminent example of how the I.T.C. can be used. Because the company manufactures almost all its products overseas, the judges who have found it guilty of infringing on patents in smartphones, semiconductors and smartwatches say it should be punished by blocking the import of iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches.

Without realizing it, we’ve become a nation of monopolies. A large and growing part of our economy is “owned” by a handful of companies that face little competition.

They have no incentive to deliver better products or to get more efficient. They simply rake in cash from people who have no choice but to hand it over.

A presentation of the forum delicti would not be complete without some words on the extent of jurisdiction. Under the Brussels Regulation, most commentators agree that jurisdiction based on infringement is limited to those infringements that occurred in the forum state (“mosaic approach”).73 Some74 justify this by an application of the Shevill decision of the European Court of Justice75 on intellectual property law; others come (more convincingly) to the same conclusion by pointing to the fact that infringement occurs in the forum state only with regard to domestic intellectual property rights, which necessarily leads to jurisdiction being restricted to the infringement of domestic rights.76 Irrespective of its doctrinal justification, the “mosaic approach” places a substantial burden on the plaintiff to litigate worldwide infringements. In most cases this can be justified by the possibility to sue either for all infringements in the place of the defendant’s residence77 or to sue only in those places of infringement where the lion’s share of the sales are found, expecting that losing these markets will make it unattractive for the infringer to continue his conduct. For these reasons, Article 2:203(1) of the CLIP Principles adheres in principle to a strict “territorialization” of infringement jurisdiction: the provision limits the scope of jurisdiction to infringements that occur or may occur within the territory of the state in which that court is situated. However, the territorial fragmentation of infringement jurisdiction appears unsatisfactory if the infringement is carried out through ubiquitous media such as the Internet, and a concentration of all claims in the state of the infringer’s residence seems inappropriate because this state has, for lack of substantial effect, no interest in litigating the worldwide infringement.78 In such a situation in which the infringer directs almost all his activities to states other than his home state (which might be a copyright haven), Article 2:203(2) CLIP makes a worldwide concentration of all infringement actions in one forum (other than the infringer’s residence) possible, provided that substantial activities in furtherance of the infringement in its entirety have been carried out within the territory of the state in which the court is situated, or79 the harm caused by the infringement in the state where the court is situated is substantial in relation to the infringement in its entirety.80