The Biden Administration is leaving Trump a time bomb. The US seems intent on trying to cripple China, but the effect is rebounding badly and will most likely cripple its own economy.
We have one rebound on top of another, Sanctions and war, war and then sanctions. The USA has, for a very long time, in fact since the inception of the People’s Republic of China, worked towards a regime change that is most definitely not in the interests or the desires of the People of China. However, we shouldn’t attempt to deceive ourselves or make light of this, it isn’t just China that the US wants to sanction, it’s everyone they don’t agree with, or who doesn’t agree with them.
Originally, sanctions (or embargoes) were created to stop wars but have increasingly become the first choice as weapons of war; they’re used to weaken a government, and ready them for a shock and awe, or enrage a population to create the conditions for a civil war. They aren’t just coercive economic tools, they are precursors or warnings of thing to come which are deliberately imposed to inflict maximum damage to ordinary people. Sanctions, if you are an innocent civilian unlucky enough to be born in Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, the DPRK, or in China during the 1950s, 60s and into the 70s, are lethal tools designed to kill as many of you as possible.
Libya was sanctioned and it was still invaded, Iraq was sanctioned and it was still invaded, Syria was sanctioned and it was invaded too. Cuba was sanctioned, invaded and then sanctioned further when the invasion didn’t work, Afghanistan is sanctioned because again the invasion failed but no one can remember why! The original purpose was to find Bin Laden, who was eventually found and murdered in Pakistan which itself is also sanctioned. The two “main enemies”, Russia and China, are sanctioned greatly. These are the lethal games that the US primarily plays, when it doesn’t like the result it’s getting – sometimes even when it doesn’t want to accept the results of the very democracy they want to create.
To get an idea how bad it is, there are 26 countries between Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, currently experiencing US sanctions and the numbers of people Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), meaning individuals who are sanctioned, coupled with the number of organisational entities has reached tens of thousands with Russia and China being at the top. The Department of State has released a Master Sanctions list, it’s 88 pages long, but will be longer at the next update. And, while we think of Trump as the king of Sanctions, the Biden Administration has done far more. In 2023, the Biden Administration sanctioned 10% more entities and SDNs than the previous year and that year was 10% more than the previous year too.
There are three necessary aspects to consider here: one is that the sanctions, although they work well in destroying economies, and consequently the lives of ordinary people, in smaller nations, they will absolutely cause more harm to the US and/or their allies than they will to the larger economies capable of finding ways to overcome them. China and Russia are exactly that – larger economies. They will overcome either through legally trading with other countries that have the products or services they need, or creating the product or service themselves inside their own borders. This has the negative effect of increasing prices in both the country that is sanctioned but also the country doing the sanctions.
The final considerations is that in some cases, particularly with countries such as Russia, which, despite sanctions has been trading a great deal of its gas and uranium to the USA, and China, which is the source of much of the resources needed to maintain its powerful military, after being unilaterally sanctioned, have the right to retaliate and their retaliation, as the US has just discovered, can hurt.
Russian trade with the USA hasn’t stopped, it’s just finding ways into the country that cause the price to increase, the Jamnagar refinery in India for example, was buying no Russian oil 3 years ago and now 30% of its oil supply is from Russia. It’s refined, mixed and sold to many countries including the USA. Just a month ago Russia also stopped selling enriched uranium to the USA, it was 27% of the USA’s needs and now they need a new supplier.
China is the same with a virtual monopoly on gallium, germanium, antimony and super hard materials that are vital to U.S. industrial production, China has just stopped supplying them. AP misleadingly reports that this move comes after, and therefore because, Trump has been ramping up the rhetoric on tariffs but that’s not the way China works. This isn’t in response to rhetoric, it’s in response to an increasing number of illegal and unilateral sanctions the Biden Administration has imposed on China. Proof of this is the Interim Final Report, released by the Bureau of Industry and Security, Commerce stating that as of 2nd December this year, a raft of new sanctions and restrictions would be placed on the sale of high-bandwidth memory and chipmaking tools to China, including tools produced by U.S. companies abroad.
China’s mineral products were restricted and needed special licenses as of a year ago, they could still be exported from China and into the USA under license but not for dual use. They couldn’t be used in the production of war material. Now, they are banned. The banned items are absolutely integral components of so many manufactured products. This will of course, hurt military industrial organisations. But now, the domino effect, is going to impact on everything that’s made in the US that needs a screen. They are used in cars and, most importantly to a country that still produces a large amount of steel and other metals, they are used in smelting.
Further compounding the USA’s woes, just a few days ago the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA), the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), the Internet Society of China (ISC) and the China Association of Communication Enterprises (CACE) released separate, but clearly coordinated statements, saying that they firmly oppose the U.S. abuse of export control measures. As always, in China, the wording of the report was such that these associations welcome cooperation but, if cooperation is not forthcoming, then domestically sourced products, or products from non-sanctioning corporations will be sought. Senior executives in the US Semiconductor industry will be working overtime this week!
The US seems intent on trying to cripple China, but the effect is rebounding badly and will most likely cripple its own economy. If China and Chinese corporations, in retaliation to unilateral and illegal sanctions, stop purchasing US controlled semiconductors, and stop supplying materials for the manufacture of everyday goods then the USA isn’t just looking at increases in inflation, it will be far worse than that. The Biden Administration is leaving Trump a time bomb and Trump seems to be walking blindly and willingly towards it.
Jerry Grey is a former British Police officer who was a general manager in a multi-national security company based in Australia for 17 years. He has lived, worked, travelled extensively and studied in China for almost two decades. He holds a Master Degree in cross cultural change management. Jerry Grey is a freelance writer living in Southern China's Guangdong province.
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