Tunnel-vision tech attack bill threatens to inflict injury on all: China Daily editorial

When the Senate passed the $245 billion United States Innovation and Competition Act with strong bipartisan support in June, few would have considered it being stuck in the House of Representatives even a remote possibility.

But there are signs that it will be extremely difficult for the House to pass what is essentially an anti-China bill this year, as the divergence among US lawmakers on its pertinence is growing wider.

That belies the false sense of urgency the bill's China-bashing proposers have been trying to form — as if any delay to the legislation would cause the US to lose the upper hand permanently in its competition with China.

The over 2,400-page document is nothing but a hodgepodge of multifarious legislative initiatives. But its content boils down to a desperate desire to suppress China's technological competition, while building up the legal channels to fatten the pockets of certain corporations with taxpayers' money, and make their already high profits exorbitant.

For the act's proposers and supporters, the attempt to bend the global supply chains to the advantage of the US brooks no delay.

"Our supply chain crisis needs attending to and we cannot wait," Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said when announcing that the annual National Defense Authorization Act the Senate is to begin considering this week would be amended to include the USICA.

The US has been making determined efforts to distort the global supply chains by excluding China. For instance, in September, the US Commerce Department shamelessly instructed major semiconductor suppliers and users to submit details about their supply chains, including inventory data, by Nov 8 to further tighten its control on the key industrial parts, irrespective of the fact that the shortage of chips, as a consequence, has seriously affected nearly 170 industries around the world.

But while there are many areas of agreement on these legislative proposals between Democrats and Republicans and the two chambers, there are still a number of important unresolved issues. After Republican senators made it clear they would block the inclusion of USICA in the NDAA, a bicameral agreement has been reached to conference the USICA.

Therefore, the House and Senate are to immediately begin a bipartisan process of reconciling the two chambers' legislative proposals so that a final piece of legislation can be delivered "to the President's desk as soon as possible".

If the USICA is signed into law in any form, it will seriously harm the scientific and technological endeavors of both countries and beyond.

It would also hijack efforts to get Sino-US relations back on the right track, something that the leaders of the two countries agreed was essential in their video meeting on Tuesday.