Protectionism leads to negative consequences

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are scheduled to travel to BEIJING for more high-level Trade talks starting on March 28.

CGTN host Tian Wei discussed theU.S.-China Trade dispute and American concerns about academic technology exchanges with former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Susan Shirk, who is now a professor at the University of California.

"I am extremely worried about this because the U.S. and China are already so intertwined in our university, in our science and technology research and in our tech startups. I lived in California, so I see this firsthand," said Shirk.

She expressed the view that the hostile situation is slowing down human progress, "The whole idea of decoupling our two economies is really terrible because it will definitely slow down human progress. So that is why on the U.S. side, I have a pretty clear point of view, which is we should limit our national security restrictions with export controls and with investment to only thosetechnologies that are really directly related to military defense.

"But there is a real danger for defining every advanced technology as a matter of national security because it is too easy to flip into technological protectionism. It is like all protectionism, it is going to make us lazy and do more poorly than if we were competing."

Ifthe trend continues, Shirk warned it is going to lead to lots of negative consequences. "For people from China, we may lose the opportunity to attract Chinese talents to our universities and to our research and development operation. Frankly, I am in favor of competing for Chinese talents, hoping they will stay in America. I think we should be really careful. Whenever we are considering the restrictions, we have to think very hard about the cost and benefits about that."

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)