The Patriot Post® · Chips for China While U.S. Goes Begging

In yet another stunning move that reeks of moral bankruptcy, the Biden administration has partially de-sanctioned communist Chinese tech giant Huawei, granting the corporation millions of dollars’ worth of licenses to purchase American chips for its growing auto component business.

Prior to this move, Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, had been kept in check courtesy of trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on the sale of chips and other components. The Biden administration had ostensibly been reinforcing that agenda by denying licenses to sell chips to Huawei for 5G devices.

Reuters notes the change of heart: “But in recent weeks and months, people familiar with the application process told Reuters the U.S. has granted licenses authorizing suppliers to sell chips to Huawei for such vehicle components as video screens and sensors. The approvals come as Huawei pivots its business toward items that are less susceptible to U.S. trade bans.”

Considering more Americans have been killed by a Chinese-generated pandemic than were killed during WWII and Vietnam combined, one might wonder why any Chinese business would remain less susceptible to U.S. trade bans.

Yet in many ways, Huawei is in a class by itself. As columnist Stephen Green points out: “Huawei owes its success to industrial espionage against former Canadian tech giant Nortel. Huawei stole all the intellectual property it could from Nortel, under the guise of being a friendly ‘manufacturing partner’ in Communist-controlled mainland China. Huawei then copied Nortel’s business model and forced them into bankruptcy in 2009 before being finally dissolved in 2010. Since then, Huawei has done worse, allegedly embedding spy routines in its 5G cellular radio gear.”

In 2019, federal prosecutors indicted Huawei, two affiliates, Huawei Device USA Inc., Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. and Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng, charging them with bank fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), conspiracy to violate IEEPA, and the attempt to obstruct justice. A year later, federal prosecutors indicted Huawei again for the company’s alleged illegal behavior in Iran and North Korea.

Currently, Meng remains under arrest in Canada while the DOJ seeks her extradition. “Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise,” the AP reports.

Apparently, preventing China’s further rise is no longer in the cards, and the Biden administration is splitting hairs to allow that to happen. “Auto chips are generally not considered sophisticated,” Reuters explains, “lowering the bar for approval.”

Lowering the bar has consequences for American automakers, including GM and Ford, which have been forced to shut down entire production lines due to an ongoing shortage of computer chips required to run the high-tech gear in today’s cars and trucks. Nonetheless, the Biden administration has “granted licenses authorizing suppliers to sell chips to Huawei for such vehicle components as video screens and sensors.”

Mike Rogers (R-AL), the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, is hardly surprised. “Is there a dictator or despot that this administration won’t surrender to, appease, or enrich?” he asked. “I urge the administration to immediately reverse this decision before further harm is done to U.S. national security.” Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was equally blunt, noting the move was “yet another example of President Biden’s failure to protect America’s economic and national security” and that it should be tightening restrictions on Huawei rather than granting it waivers that enable the CCP’s “digital authoritarianism.” Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) agreed. “It’s unacceptable for the Biden administration to ease the pressure campaign against Chinese spy companies like Huawei.”

Apparently not.

What a difference a few months make. Last April, in a virtual meeting with the CEOs of AT&T, Dell, Ford, General Motors, Intel, Northrop Grumman, and others, Biden pledged to work with international partners to ensure stable supplies of computer chips, which is yet another supply chain dominated by Asia. Now, Huawei, which took a big financial hit after Trump sanctioned it, will likely be reinvigorated — while American automakers deal with the likely reality that competition for already scarce chips will become even more pronounced.

Last week, it was reported the U.S. intelligence community determined the origin of the coronavirus that has devastated both our nation and the world was “inconclusive.” As Anita Cicero, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, put it, “I’m actually disturbed that much of the scientific and public health community seems complacent to make their best guesses and move on without getting to the root cause of the pandemic.”

“Complacent”? The bet here is “relieved” is a far more accurate term, and not just with regard to the scientific and public health community. For far too many elitists — in both political parties, Big Tech, Hollywood, academia, the NBA, and multinational corporations — getting paid handsomely to accommodate Chinese communist thugs transcends all other priorities, including America’s economic well-being and our national security. At no other time in the history of the nation have we seen such a profound disconnect between such people and their fellow Americans.

How disconnected? Last Wednesday, while the Biden administration was taking a wrecking ball to America’s credibility in Afghanistan, stocks climbed to new all-time highs.

The nation is badly divided, but not in the way most Americans think. Ordinary, decent Americans of every race, religion, sexual orientation, and political affiliation have become beholden to a ruling class that holds them in utter contempt. A ruling class that views the nation, along with its culture, traditions, language, and borders, as disdainful anachronisms that must dismantled.

In 2022, Americans must begin disabusing these self-aggrandizing overlords of their abhorrent ambition. And forget the minutiae — the simplest questions will tell you all you need to know about any candidate for office in either party.

Think America’s systemically racist? Find a job in the private sector. Think it needs “fundamental transformation”? Sell that tripe sitting on a barstool, not in the halls of Congress. Taking campaign contributions from Big Tech, Wall Street, and virtue-signaling multinationals? Take a hike. Still want to do business as usual with communist thugs responsible for killing more than 600,000 Americans? We’re through doing business with you.

The Afghanistan debacle is a watershed moment. The intellectual and moral rot of those who purport to be “experts” can no longer be concealed, and the canon to which they adhere, so brilliantly exposed by Angelo Codevilla 11 years ago, can no longer by sustained.

America is not a perfect nation. Yet elitist assertions that a lack of perfection requires unrelenting atonement — rather than introspection and aspiration — epitomize those who would burn this nation to the ground, as long as they could rule over the ashes.

It’s time to toss them on the ash heap of history.