Beware China’s ‘Digital Authoritarianism’: USTR Tai

The U.S. and its trade allies increasingly worry about the “digital authoritarianism” being practiced by China and other “undemocratic” countries, including “intrusive surveillance and censorship,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in Q&A during a keynote Wednesday at a Georgetown Law Center virtual conference. Their practices can “influence the ability of Americans to enjoy their civil liberties right here at home,” she said.

The Biden administration wants to “think through the ways that countries like China, through competition that is unfair -- how countries like that engage in behaviors that harm American workers and American businesses,” said Tai. “We will have to ask ourselves hard questions,” including whether digital commerce can “facilitate imports that are made with forced labor,” or if it can “exacerbate problems in illegal trade,” she said. The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry didn’t comment.

Answering tough questions about digital commerce “is part of making sure that our domestic and foreign policies are aligned,” said Tai. Doing so “gets at some of the challenges that we have, and where a lot of our thinking around traditional trade policies is still extremely relevant when applying the digital trade context,” she said.

Tai sidestepped an audience question about whether she’s concerned about China’s announcement this week that it plans to join the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) in Asia Pacific. Chile, New Zealand and Singapore launched the DEPA and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership last year. Both agreements “include provisions on inclusivity, data and trust,” she said. “I respect the work that Singapore and its trading partners have put into both those agreements. We know that we don’t have all the answers, and want to learn from others, and have been asking questions and exploring the work that has been done in some of these areas.”

The “holistic, inclusive approach” the U.S. is taking toward digital trade “is one that we think is critical to ensuring that we have flexible, resilient, durable policies that we can work towards,” said Tai. The right policies “are going to strike the balance between creating the guardrails that we need, but not forcing ourselves into corners that are going to be ones that we regret later on,” she said.

What is often referred to as the new or future economy “is actually the economy we have now,” said Tai in her prepared remarks. “It is an increasingly digital and digitalized economy, which continues to grow, evolve, and challenge us in every realm of our individual and collective experiences.”

That's why "we must approach digital trade policy with thoughtfulness and wisdom so that we pursue growth that is inclusive, fair, sustainable,” said Tai. There is no “bright line” separating digital trade from the digital economy, “or the ‘traditional’ economy for that matter,” she said. “Nearly every aspect of our economy has been digitized to some degree.” The U.S. approach to digital trade policy “must be grounded in how it affects our people and our workers,” she said.