The U.S. Is Trying to Turn China Into the Next Iran
The Trump administration is in the midst of the most profound shift in U.S. strategy toward China in almost half a century.
Happier days, in 2017.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Between the pandemic and the protests, it was easy to miss. But for the last several months, the U.S. has been quietly adjusting its approach to China, going beyond President Donald Trump’s tweets and speeches.
Since April, the Trump administration has been warning federal pension funds against investing in indexes whose portfolios include large Chinese companies. It has tightened export-control regulations, suspended visas for students and regime officials and pressed for more transparent accounting standards for Chinese companies that trade on U.S. stock exchanges. Last month the State Department required a second batch of Chinese state media to register as foreign agents with the Justice Department. And administration officials tell me they are currently debating whether to follow India’s lead and press U.S. platforms to drop the Chinese social media app, TikTok.