Thanks to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, our relationship with Communist China is again receiving the tiny bit of scrutiny that passes for communist China-relationship scrutiny.
As always, the relationship deserves much more scrutiny than it gets.
The last time the China relationship received a little scrutiny? That was in 2020, when the China virus reminded us that we rely way too much on China for the manufacture of … well, pretty much everything that really matters—and a whole lot of stuff that really doesn’t.
Hence, the Trump tariffs, to try to make us even a little less reliant on China. How pathetic is Washington that it took five years (really, 50)—and an anti-Washington outsider president—to finally begin to address this?
In response to Trump’s tariffs imposed in part to offset China using subsidies and slave labor to flood the U.S. with anti-free market, artificially cheap stuff, China is ramping up its use of subsidies and slave labor to increase its U.S. flood of anti-free market, artificially cheap stuff.
China’s horrendous dominance of U.S. is all-encompassing. Another vital aspect of U.S. national life it dominates: All things tech.
Last week, Washington pretended to care what a Meta (Facebook) whistleblower had to say about the company’s total sellout to China. Sarah Wynn-Williams was once Facebook’s director of global public policy. Now, she’s detailing how Facebook sold out U.S. national security and American citizens to China, including in testimony before Congress. It’s testimony that she says Facebook vehemently sought to prevent her from giving.
How do we know Washington is only pretending to care? Because we have time and again had whistleblowers expose Big Tech’s sellout to China. Washington has time and again done nothing at all about any of it.
That makes me wonder about Washington’s inaction and bizarre action in another tech area that also benefits China and harms the U.S.
Behold the global spectrum race. As with most things “global” these days, it’s really a race between but two nations—the U.S. and China.
Spectrum is the airwaves we use for everything wireless. From your smartphone all the way down to your car key fob. Spectrum is a finite resource, and not all of it is created equal.
Think in terms of a Monopoly game board. Some spectrum is Boardwalk and Park Place. Some is Baltic and Mediterranean avenues. And there are many gradations in between.
About 60% of U.S. spectrum is owned by the federal government, much of it of high and very high quality. Shocker: They aren’t using it very wisely or well.
The government needs to consolidate its use of the spectrum it has, thereby clearing much of it. Then the government needs to make the cleared spectrum available to the private sector.
But the federal government has spent decades dragging its feet on all of this, leaving the private sector to wring as much use as possible out its 40% of spectrum, even as it anxiously awaits Washington getting its act together.
The way Washington makes its spectrum available to the private sector is via auctions. But the Federal Communications Commission’s auction authority expired in March 2023. Congress has since done nothing about that.
So, even if the government was making spectrum available, there’d be no way for the government to sell it to the private sector.
(Why does the FCC need congressional permission to conduct the auctions? Just conduct the auctions.)
Right now, the spectrum focus, such as it is, is upon what’s known as the midband. That’s because the government owns a lot of it, and it’s highly useful for and by the private sector.
That brings us to the China problem.
There are two main ways the government issues spectrum: Licensed and unlicensed.
Unlicensed is a sort of spectrum collectivism. It’s a multiuser format and a free-for-all.
Of course, unlicensed is highly useful in many ways, but not with the global spectrum race—and therefore not with the China problem.
You’ve heard of 5G? That’s short for Fifth Generation, as in the fifth wireless network thus far developed.
But 5G hasn’t yet reached fully “developed.” The first country to fully develop it gets to set the global standards for the network. Again, that “global” race is really just between China and the U.S., and won’t it be great if it’s China setting the standards?
Wireless networks require licensed spectrum. Unlicensed is utterly unhelpful. And since we’re all fixated upon the midband spectrum, let’s examine how it’s currently allocated.
Spectrum is measured in megahertz. The midband spectrum total is 5,745 MHz. The federal government still holds 3,390 MHz (59% of it). The remaining 2,355 MHz (41%) has been allocated to the private sector.
But 1,905 MHz of it has been allocated to China—unhelpful unlicensed—a whopping 81%. Only 450 MHz (19%) has been licensed.
Again: Only licensed helps us in the global spectrum race with China.
So, I’m left to wonder: Why is Washington so doggedly dragging its feet on making more spectrum available to the private sector?
And why is Washington making so little of what little they’ve made available, useful in helping the U.S. beat China to 5G?
A few Washington whistleblowers would be likely inordinately helpful in answering those questions.
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