The ugly truth behind Washington's "fair competition" myth

US intelligence officials issued a warning recently to American companies against working with China in key emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and semiconductors, saying that such ties threaten America's superiority in these industries.

Such a move is a flagrant and unscrupulous obstruction of normal global exchanges and cooperation, and gravely runs counter to the principle of fair competition that the United States has long chanted.

It is now increasingly clear that American-style "fair competition" is all about keeping "America First," and playing zero-sum games. Judah Grunstein, editor-in-chief of World Politics Review, an online publisher of in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs, said in an article that the United States is "seeing everything through the prism of contest."

"The danger of seeing everything through the prism of a US-China contest is that it reduces the world's regions to playing fields and its countries to prizes, rather than engaging with them as actors with their own interests and needs," he wrote.

History does not lack stories of the United States attempting to protect its selfish interests in the global market in the name of "fair competition."

In the 1980s, it took unprecedented strict protective actions to hammer Japan's growing semiconductor industry, including launching anti-dumping investigations against Japanese companies, forcing the country to limit exports, and levying high retaliatory tariffs.

In the early years of this century when the US steel industry was facing competition from Europe, Washington did not focus on boosting the market competitiveness of its products. Instead, the United States, under the pretext of unfair competition, chose to impose punitive duties and import restrictions on the steel products of its European allies.

Over the past few years, Washington politicians have turned their sights on Chinese firms in order to contain China's development. They have deliberately stirred up trade disputes with China, imposed bans on Chinese investments, and abused the concept of national security to batter Chinese enterprises.

But have such detestable moves benefited the United States? The answer is negative. As a matter of fact, Washington's bullying has shot itself in the foot, eroded foreign investors' confidence in the United States, and undermined the country's credibility in the global market.

According to a study commissioned by the US-China Business Council earlier this year, the Washington-initiated trade war with China in 2018 resulted in a loss of over 200,000 jobs in the United States, as well as a 49-percent fall in foreign direct investment in the country.

In a survey conducted by US media outlet Protocol which focuses on technology, nearly 60 percent of 1,578 US technology workers believe that "US restrictions on Chinese technology companies have gone too far," and "a Cold War with China could cripple US tech companies."

Washington should abandon its hypocritical "fair competition" theory and learn to work with others in the spirit of mutual respect and mutual benefit. In today's interconnected world, it should have no other choice.