Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington 9 HOURS AGO
Hollywood and Silicon Valley executives are underestimating the chances that Chinese president Xi Jinping will order an attack on Taiwan, according to the Republican chair of a new House committee focused on threats from the Chinese Communist party.
Speaking after his committee spent several days in California meeting executives including Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Disney boss Bob Iger, Mike Gallagher said he was struck by a general lack of concern that Xi would at some point order military action.
“They sort of grudgingly recognise that Xi is going down the dark path . . . but I just don’t think they believe that Xi would launch a war over Taiwan,” Gallagher, head of the House China committee, told the Financial Times.
Although the Wisconsin Republican would not be drawn on conversations with individual executives, Gallagher said those who had met Xi were even more likely to play down the possibility of an attack.
“There’s just a tendency to discount the idea that Xi Jinping would make a move on Taiwan, because they think it would be so economically disastrous for him,” said Gallagher.
“They think Xi thinks like they do, in terms of profit, business earnings . . . I think he’s far more of an ideological actor than they give him credit for,” he added.
Gallagher’s warning comes amid rising concern on Capitol Hill that some US companies are susceptible to pressure from Beijing because of their reliance on China for a big chunk of their revenues or supply chains.
The lawmakers, who met other Hollywood executives in addition to Iger, expressed concern about movie studios censoring their films by altering scenes to prevent them from being blocked for distribution in China.
Gallagher said he was disappointed Hollywood executives seemed to think American “soft power” could help reduce the risk of a conflict. “We have two decades of evidence to say that that’s not going to happen.”
He said that he did not “throw a bunch of bombs” in his meeting with Cook, adding he and his members wanted to understand the “trade-offs” Apple makes “in return for access to the Chinese market”.
Gallagher recounted a conversation with Cook in which he asked why Apple had limited the “AirDrop” function — which allows users to directly swap content without using a mobile network — on iPhones last year following protests against China’s “zero-Covid” policy.
He said Apple had justified the move as part of an effort to stop people sharing lewd images. “We’re going to try and ascertain whether that’s true,” he added.
Apple and Disney declined to comment.
The Republican also said that he had asked Apple whether it was moving quickly enough to diversify its supply chain given that it sources the vast majority of chips from factories in Taiwan, which would be severely disrupted, if not completely shut down, in the event of an invasion.
“My question to them is . . . what happens when the bottom falls out because of a confrontation over Taiwan? Then you’re screwed.”
Gallagher said he had urged executives “to consider the alternative view” that “we’re in the window of maximum danger over Taiwan”.
“The more they proactively try and decouple and diversify their supply chains from China, the better off they’re going to be financially because I just don’t see things changing with Xi becoming a nice guy anytime soon.”
Fonte: Financial Times
