Content area
Full Text
When policymakers consider national security, they tend to think first of military capabilities: the weaponry and ammunition a country possesses, the state of its armed forces, its border defenses, its surveillance and cybersecurity. Since 2020, however, U.S. national security strategy has taken a sharply commercial turn. The COVID-19 pandemic and its huge disruptions of economies made strategists more conscious of supply chains'fragility. Where, exactly, are all the chips and ball bearings that go into weapons manufactured?
The pandemic also illuminated just how much U.S. companies depend on China in the multistep manufacturing processes that bring products to consumers, including items crucial for national security and for the transition to green energy. China currently processes 85 percent of the critical minerals that go into high-tech devices. China also boasts 77 percent of the world's battery-manufacturing capacity and makes more than half the electric vehicles sold worldwide. Beijing makes no secret of its intent to displace Washington as the motor that drives the world's economies-or of its willingness to use subsidies, espionage, and coercion to achieve this end.
Since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in early 2021, his administration has worked to try to diminish the threat China's supply chain dominance poses to the United States. In his first 100 days, he ordered a sweeping analysis of the supply chains for four areas vital to U.S. security and economic stability: critical minerals, large-capacity batteries, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals. The review found that the minerals that power Americans' mobile phones and computers mostly come from China, as do a good portion of the active ingredients that go into 120 of the most basic medicines.The analysis showed how reliant the U.S. electric vehicle, solar panel, and wind turbine industries are on Chinese factories.
Biden has sought to help U.S. companies fill these supply-chain gaps. He has aggressively pursued "friend shoring," establishing working groups with European countries to address drug shortages and secure critical minerals, as well as coordinating with the European Union on supply chain, technology, data, and investment policies. His administration has dedicated even more energy to fortifying economic alliances in Asia, launching the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework-which focuses heavily on supply chains-and inviting Japan and South Korea to collaborate on an early-warning system to predict supply chain disruptions.