US backyard on fire? After Brazil, another turns to China

Chile's President Kast sat down with China's ambassador Niu Qingbao last Friday. The meeting at the presidential palace ran over an hour. It was the first face-to-face contact since the right-wing leader took office in March. 

Chile's President Kast

Just one day before the meeting, the US Trade Representative's office confirmed a 12.5% tariff on Chilean imports. 

According to the presidential palace, Kast, Foreign Minister Makena, and Deputy Foreign Minister Torres used the meeting to review the bilateral agenda. 

They also discussed the foreign minister's upcoming visit to China and preparations for the president's attendance at the APEC Leaders' Meeting in Shenzhen on November 18-19.

APEC Leaders' Meeting

Washington's justification? Chile hasn't banned imports of goods made with so-called 'forced labor.' Copper, Chile's biggest export, got a pass. But salmon, timber, and food took a direct hit. 

The tariff plunges Kast back into a dilemma: caught between the two economic superpowers that dominate his country.

Kast won the presidency last November with just over 58% of the vote. His campaign playbook? Borrow heavily from Donald Trump. He promised a border wall with Bolivia and a crackdown on crime, which he pinned on Venezuelan immigrants.

But since taking office in March, his strategy of aligning with the US has already run into trouble.

Weeks before leaving office, outgoing left-wing President Gabriel Boric quietly approved a submarine cable project, operated by a Chinese company. The 19,873-kilometer cable would connect Chile directly to Hong Kong, with a 30-year concession. 

The then-minister of transport and telecommunications signed the decree on January 27. But after a warning from the US Embassy in Chile, he revoked it two days later, citing a 'typographical error.'

Washington wasn't done. In late February, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio slapped visa restrictions on three Chilean officials, accusing them of backing activities that threatened the security of critical telecom infrastructure. 

US Secretary of State Rubio

Boric later confessed that he personally ordered the revocation after receiving explicit threats from Washington. The threats included possibly removing Chile from the US Visa Waiver Program: the only South American country in it.

At the time, Chinese Ambassador Niu Qingbao publicly defended the cable project. He called it a mutually beneficial, win-win idea, and accused the US of making baseless claims about so-called strategic risks.

The numbers tell a clear story. Chile sends 37% of its exports to China: copper, lithium, lemons, cherries. And about a quarter of its imports come from China. Last year, two-way trade hit $65.33 billion. 

37% of Chile's exports go to China: copper, lithium, lemons, and cherries.

Yet, the United States remains the largest source of foreign direct investment in Chile, with a cumulative $12.5 billion, versus $4.6 billion from China, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Washington's tariff decision has rattled the ruling coalition, too. Agriculture Minister Campos and Defense Minister Barros both publicly slammed the move. On Thursday evening, Senator Squella, president of the Republican Party founded by José Antonio Kast, told CNN Chile that the tariffs prove Chile has gotten almost nothing in return for its overtures to Washington.

Squella didn't mince words. "A huge effort has been put into having the best possible relations with the United States," he told the media, "only for them to pull some sort of forced labour claim out of a hat." 

When the conversation turned to Chinese investment in Chilean ports, Squella drew a sharp line between ordinary trade and strategic assets. In some areas, he argues, Chile must be wary of capital or investors that don't align with national interests. However, Chile still lacks the institutional norms to handle such situations.

But set aside those reservations, and his views on China and the United States come into sharp focus. "If you ask me which one I would like to go deeper with, in terms of doctrine or of how a society should be run, obviously I see the United States as much closer," Squella said. Then he added a twist: "But I have no recollection of China creating difficulties or failing to respect the rules of the game."

The incident has forced Squella to reassess the real value of cozying up to Washington. "It seems there is not much point in making so much effort to have a good relationship if in the end they arrive and out of nowhere impose tariffs on us that hit us at the waterline, in activities that are fundamental to us," he said.

Deep Throat

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

The future belongs to artificial general intelligence (AGI). China and the United States are pursuing different strategies in the contest for global leadership.

But one US national security think tank wants to take the rivalry to an extreme. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has gone so far as to suggest that Washington consider extreme measures to stop China from achieving AGI first.

CNAS released “Superpowers and AGI” report late last month.

Jacob Stokes, one of the report's authors and a former White House official, called on the US to prepare itself. He listed possible extreme measures, from diplomacy and espionage to cyberattacks and coercive steps. Among them: military strikes on Chinese data centers.

Stokes, one of the authors of the report urged extreme steps, even strikes on Chinese data centers.

CNAS is headquartered in Washington and was founded in 2007. It has long advised the US government on defense, Indo-Pacific and China strategy. Its lean is hawkish.

Late last month, CNAS released a report titled “Superpowers and AGI”. The document reeks of gunpowder. It argues that the race for AGI, and the technology's potential emergence, could profoundly affect US-China competition. It could also heighten the risk of military conflict or catastrophe on multiple fronts.

The Containment Checklist

To that end, the report urges US policymakers to act on several fronts. First, ensure that American resources and technology do not aid China's AI development. Second, establish AI-focused diplomatic channels with allies and with China, so that the potential emergence of AGI is placed on the agenda. Third, develop a technically sophisticated method to track the inputs into AGI and the key performance thresholds of frontier AI systems.

The list goes on. Washington should conduct scenario exercises testing when and how the US should intervene to halt China's AGI development. It should prepare to reverse-engineer or steal the technology should China obtain AGI first. And it should limit and contain the reach of authoritarian digital infrastructure.

The most extreme proposal of all is military strikes. The South China Morning Post reported on 4 September that Stokes, deputy director of CNAS's Indo-Pacific Security Program, addressed an online event on Thursday.

His message was blunt. The US Department of Defense, the National Security Agency and other agencies should begin assessing what intelligence would be needed to justify such operations. That would pave the way for the "hard action" to follow.

The Cold War Playbook

Stokes served as a national security staffer under former US president Barack Obama. In the report he unabashedly lays out a menu of what he calls "diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kinetic measures." Among them are military strikes on the data centers that train and run China's AGI systems. He even touts preventive strikes before China develops AGI at all.

Stokes goes so far as to compare the undertaking to the way "in a past era, policymakers would learn about nuclear weapons." His declared method is to "work backwards from the science to the policy implications."

Citing assessments by research outfit Epoch AI, the report notes that the US currently leads China in advanced AI models by only "months." But it warns that China could pull off an "unexpected technological breakthrough" in fields such as robotics and "embodied AI."

Citing research institute Epoch AI data, the report sees China pulling off surprise breakthroughs.

Notably, Stokes also concedes a gap on the American side. The US government and its intelligence agencies have "not been organised for espionage to gather technological secrets for decades."

"The Height of Recklessness"

Stokes' extreme remarks have drawn questioning within the United States itself. William Hartung, a senior arms and defense budget expert at the Washington-based non-profit Project On Government Oversight (POGO), publicly slammed the report as "the height of recklessness."

Hartung warned that any strike on Chinese data centers would "risk starting a shooting war between two nuclear-armed powers". Such a war could bring tragic consequences for all concerned.

China has consistently maintained that AI should be people-centered and that intelligence should serve the good. Military applications must remain under human control. Beijing opposes turning technological issues into bloc confrontation or weaponry.

Make no mistake: technological competition is no casus belli. When individual American politicians and think-tank figures reach for threats of "military strikes" and "espionage" at every turn, they gravely violate the basic norms of international relations. They also expose a dangerous bid to politicize and militarize technology.