Invest More in Emerging Tech to Compete With China, Urges Blackburn

The U.S. needs to pour more resources into research and innovation of emerging technologies to boost commercialization and outpace Chinese technology development, said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. She advocated for a methodical decoupling and reshoring manufacturing of critical technologies. “We have to realize that you can't just decouple from China and say, 'All right, we're severing.’ It is more like an unraveling,” Blackburn told the Hoover Institution Wednesday. “Whether it is critical supply chains for semiconductor chips or telecommunications equipment … we have become too dependent on China for manufacturing, and we need to return that capability and capacity to the United States.” The U.S. isn't investing enough in R&D, she said, and needs to form better partnerships between universities and corporations. Blackburn said “technology is going to be the nexus for so many areas of growth,” and the military needs to better innovate to compete with China’s civil-military fusion surrounding military applications for artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. “Our commercial sectors and our military sectors need to be innovating,” Blackburn said. “Our military complex needs to be utilizing the new concepts that are being pushed forward in the commercial area.” Blackburn said the U.S. can take steps beyond the Commerce Department's recently amending export administration regulations to let U.S. companies more easily participate in bodies in which Huawei is a member. She pointed to S-2528 to require the administration report on the “purpose, scope and means” of expanded Chinese influence on standards bodies. Friday, the White House, China's embassy in Washington and the Semiconductor Industry Association didn't comment.