COLD WAR II: Heidi Heitkamp: Countering the China threat will take much more than tariffs.

Chief among these threats is Chinese state-coordinated theft of intellectual property and the use of such property to assert technological dominance over other counties. In 2017, the Commission on Theft of American Intellectual Property estimated that the U.S. economy loses $225 billion to $600 billion annually because of Chinese theft of IP from U.S. agricultural research firms, pharmaceutical companies, and electronics manufacturers. Though the Department of Justice has been able to prosecute select cases of theft, their current efforts have had a limited impact on the growing problem.

While economic espionage accounts for significant domestic financial losses, Chinese requirements for foreign investment also contribute to the problem. The Chinese government often requires foreign businesses hoping to operate within China to join with a local partner, effectively forcing international firms, including American businesses, to share technology in exchange for market access. Businesses who choose not to operate with a local partner often face tariffs on exports to China. As a result, companies eager to gain access to the Chinese market make a devil’s bargain that trades short-term access for the long-term loss of their IP and trade secrets.

China’s assault on our economy does not stop at economic espionage and IP theft. Their military capabilities extend well into the cyber realm, where they have hacked into university networks to steal military technologies and taken down the network of U.S. Naval contractors.

President Xi has ample opportunity to expand his offensive.

If you can get past the obligatory Orange Man Bad stuff, Heitkamp does make a couple of good points about the full spectrum of threats China poses. But the Orange Man Bad stuff isn’t easy to get past, given that Trump is the only US president in decades to take China seriously at all.