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In pushing Congress to approve his infrastructure spending plans, U.S. President Joe Biden has raised the threat of competition from China.
"If we don't get moving, they are going to eat our lunch," he told senators, citing Chinese railways and the country's automotive plans. "They're investing billions of dollars dealing with a whole range of issues that relate to transportation, the environment and a whole range of other things. We just have to step up." Sorry, Mr. President, lunch was served—and eaten—long ago.  A bullet train on the Beijing-Shanghai Railway in 2017. China increased maximum speeds on the line to 217 mph (350 kph). Photographer: STR/AFP This week in the New Economy
"Amtrak Joe" ought to know this better than anybody, having famously spent years as a senator commuting practically every day from his home in Delaware to Washington. The roughly 100-mile trip took 90 minutes (when running on time, that is) aboard Amtrak's lumbering, less-than-reliable trains. A ride of similar distance on one of China's sleek high-speed trains—Shanghai to Hangzhou, for example—takes half the time, or less. (And Chinese trains, unlike Amtrak, operate like clockwork.)
Still, it makes a lot of sense for Biden to invoke a China scare. It's only surprising that America hasn't already experienced a "Sputnik moment" with China in the way it did when the Soviet Union's launch its famous satellite in 1957. The Cold War victory jolted the Eisenhower administration into creating NASA and launching a massive program of federal investment in science and technology. Robert Manning, a senior fellow of the Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, suggests the lack of alarm could be because areas in which China has pulled ahead, like financial technology, "are largely matters of everyday life, not grand and singular achievements." In the main, Manning argues, "the U.S. has done far more whining about China than competing with it."  Brent Scowcroft Photographer: Carol T. Powers A related bad American habit is to claim, as some think-tank economists do, that China's infrastructure ambitions will end in tears. Even as China was constructing more miles of high-speed rail track than the rest of the world combined—a feat accomplished in less than a decade, starting in the first years of this century—these naysayers were warning that the billions of dollars of borrowing to fund the network would hasten a national debt crisis. In fact, high speed rail has reshaped Chinese cities, spurred tourism and boosted regional trade. As more energy generated in China comes from green sources, electric trains will reduce carbon emissions. It's about time America got worked up over Chinese infrastructure. Missing out on bullet trains is one thing (building the kind of corridors they require may be a practical impossibility in much of America, even though Biden has previously called for a national high-speed rail network and a "second great railroad revolution.") But the U.S. is also falling way behind on digital infrastructure that will power the industries of the future, including clean energy and smart manufacturing.  Eric Schmidt Photographer: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg Eric Schmidt, the former Google chief, points out that China will soon have a national 5G network with speeds of one gigabit a second. "With China's head start," Schmidt writes, "the next generation of technology giants—and the products and services they build—are not going to be European or American but Chinese." One could even argue that a Cold War with China is the last best chance for persuading U.S. politicians to get serious about building the infrastructure that must underpin future American prosperity. Domestic shaming obviously hasn't worked. Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers reviews the condition of the country's chronically congested airports, crumbling bridges, potholed highways and decrepit transit systems and offers an overall grade. Its latest in 2017? D+. Indeed, a Biden-inspired techno-nationalism would be a far more effective way for America to push back against Chinese competition than former President Donald Trump's trade wars (which accomplished very little) and investment curbs (which damage the U.S. as much as China). It was precisely this patriotic spirit that produced the original moonshot and the investments in fundamental science and research that spawned Silicon Valley. Biden has said he expects rivalry with China will take the form of "extreme competition" rather than conflict. When it comes to infrastructure, though, let's be clear: In key areas, America is playing catch-up.
Bloomberg New Economy Conversations With Andrew Browne. Join us Feb. 23 at 10 a.m. EST for The Big "Bounce-Back," where we'll discuss the post-Covid recovery, and the outlook for investors and innovation. Will a flood of consumer spending rescue commercial real estate or bolster online giants? Can business travel recover and does Big Oil have a future? Will Asia remain ascendant or will Europe become a rival? Register here. This conversation is brought to you by IDA Ireland.
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