On Friday, the US Department of Commerce announced it was adding five Chinese companies and one research institute to its export blacklist.
The US Commerce Department justified the move by claiming that the six entities support "China's military modernization efforts, specifically the People's Liberation Army's aerospace programs including airships and balloons".
Although US President Joe Biden reiterated in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that "we seek competition, not conflict", the sensationalizing of the airship into a "spy balloon" has given his administration an excuse to once again abuse US export controls to target more Chinese high-tech enterprises.
As the anti-China hawks will not let the incident rest, their hullabaloo creates enough background noise to drown out the complaints of US businesses that are sure to be hurt by the move. And given the push to squash China's tech progress, more such moves can be expected. But the Biden administration is playing a risky game in trying to manipulate the anti-China scaremongering this way, as its China policy is in danger of being entirely hijacked by the anti-China caucus in Congress.
Despite China explaining the airship was for meteorological research and it inadvertently entered US airspace, the anti-China mob has jumped at the chance to intensify its scaremongering about China, blowing up the balloon into a silent and sinister intruder into the United States that was intent on covert intelligence gathering and surveillance activities. China has repeatedly urged the US not to overreact, with a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman saying on Friday that the US' dramatizing of the incident was political points scoring.
Certainly, US businesses and consumers seem to have their own views on ties, as a US media report noted after the US Department of Commerce released data showing that the US' goods trade volume with China reached a record-high of $609.6 billion in 2022, with both exports and imports increasing. The healthy Sino-US economic and trade relations that have long been established are mutually beneficial and conform to the interests of the US, and US businesses and consumers.
Saying the balloon incident had offset efforts made by both sides to maintain the stability of bilateral relations, Xu Xueyuan, the chargé d'affaires of the Chinese embassy in the US, said in a video conference organized by the US-China Trade Commission on Thursday, that she hoped that "friends from the American business community" can play their part in curbing the negative factors that undermine cooperation, and jointly promote the return of China-US relations to the right track, so as to provide greater certainty and stability for the development of China-US economic and trade relations that have always acted as the stabilizer for relations.
Something that even Washington's frogs-in-the-well should be cognizant of.