Cold War Lessons to Stop Communist China’s Technological Rise

Late last month, House China Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) called for harsher restrictions on exports of advanced semiconductors – critical in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology – to communist China. In doing so, Moolenaar is drawing on the wisdom that American leaders leveraged in the United States’ last great power competition with the Soviet Union.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Moolenaar warned that allowing the sale of American AI chips that are even slightly more advanced than those currently available in China could constitute a major economic and national security threat to the United States. 

“We have repeatedly seen the Chinese Communist Party proliferate its technology and weapons to enable Russia, Iran, and proxy groups to attack American partners and allies,” Moolenaar wrote. “Iran, in particular, will be eager to take advantage of PRC-enabled AI capabilities.”

To the casual observer, it may seem that China is on the cutting edge of new technologies like AI. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) loves showcasing its state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles, drones, and futuristic devices that seem to be straight out of sci-fi movies.

Indeed, Chinese companies have introduced some incredible new inventions in recent years. But those inventions have largely been built thanks to tech developed in the United States – whether stolen or intentionally exported.

According to some estimates, all intellectual property theft by Chinese entities costs the United States about $500 billion per year. That theft is heavily concentrated in the technology sector as both the U.S. and China race to build ever-more advanced AI models and supercomputers.

Now, in the emerging AI arms race with China, the United States may be at risk of literally handing the advantage to the CCP. This year, American companies will deploying around 14 million AI chips, while China’s leading advanced semiconductor producer, Huawei, is only expected to produce around 200,000. While the U.S. controls more than half of all global semiconductor trade, China controls just 4.5 percent – a mark that it took them 14 years to achieve.

The United States should not willingly give up that advantage. Moreover, U.S. political and tech leaders should recognize that the American AI edge is a critical strategic advantage worth protecting.

For Americans who lived through the Cold War, all of this will likely sound familiar. After World War II, the Soviet Union deployed a robust – and astonishingly successful – operation to steal American technology that kept the communists competitive in their struggle against the West. According to one declassified top-secret document, the U.S. government estimated that the Soviet Union stole about 80 percent of its advanced technology from the United States.

An open society like the United States thrives on unrestricted scientific debate, risk-taking, and recognition of technology’s role in economic growth. In contrast, totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union and China are inherently infertile ground for scientific and technological progress.

China long ago learned as the Soviet Union did that it must steal to remain competitive. As Professor Kuang Yuhang, a former Politburo advisor who defected to the West in 1989 noted, the CCP’s “control over thought is crucial for its survival, stifling dissent that is essential for innovation.” China’s perceived advances “rely on experts educated in the United States and stolen technology, masking a reality of regression.”

To prevent the Soviet Union from using American technology to gain an advantage in the Cold War, the United States and the Western alliance created the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), comprised of NATO member states and Japan. This organizing body embargoed cutting-edge tech from reaching the Soviet Union and, importantly, relied on patriotic appeals to CEOs to keep their tech in Western hands.

“Western export controls kept the Soviet technology outdated,” former German President Richard von Weizsäcker told this author in a 2001 interview. “COCOM measures weakened it.”

Even during the Cold War, however, China sought to undermine COCOM and funnel new technologies to the Soviets – something President Ronald Reagan recognized early on. A 1984 CIA report revealed that China was re-exporting materials like electronics-grade silicon used in microchips to the Soviet Union. The Treasury had previously warned that China should not be considered a “friend” due to its intentions to acquire military technology under the guise of civilian use.

In a 2006 interview with this author, Admiral Thomas C. Reed noted that Reagan viewed the CCP “as equally malevolent as the Soviets, but with outdated weapons.” He emphasized that “strict export constraints” should have been maintained “until it was clear the communists could not recover.”

That wisdom may still be relevant today. Dr. Jean-Francois Wang, a Chinese defector and former high-ranking member of the CCP security apparatus, told me that Beijing views Silicon Valley CEOs as entirely profit-motivated, which makes them “crucial for the progress of the People’s Liberation Army.” Beijing clearly recognizes that the future of its tech sector relies on buying or stealing American innovations.

As Moolenaar’s letter reflects, U.S. lawmakers are now coming around to this threat and looking to leverage America’s technological edge to out-compete China. Moolenaar specifically recommends “limiting China’s aggregate computing power to 10 percent of that of the U.S.” and selling “only chips that represent up to a marginal improvement over the most advanced chip China can produce domestically at a commercial scale.”

The CCP knows that such a regulation would end its dreams of outproducing the U.S. and capturing its profitable markets. “For now,” Professor Kuang said, “they lie publicly about their successes” while secretly “trying to undermine the U.S.”

As history shows, China’s only path to long-term competition with the United States is through exploiting American innovation for nefarious ends. U.S. leaders led an international coalition to thwart a similar strategy from the Soviet Union a generation ago. Perhaps it’s time to do it again.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.