More reality-check news on embattled U.S. tech competitiveness and the eager evolution of offshoring as something a bit more than a passing industry trend. The competitiveness issue-currently getting big play at the White House and on Capitol Hill-actually is just a replay of the jaundiced Japanese juggernaut threat of the 1980s and the economic transformation in the Information Age.
In the past, federal regulators were criticized for delays in getting cell-phone service off the ground. That was followed by feisty finger-pointing over the muddy mix of U.S. digital mobile-phone technologies that was so untidy compared to neat self-serving European model. And the beat goes on, as Asia and Europe storm ahead with advanced handsets and wireless networks in the 21st century. It’s the unspectacular global ranking of U.S. broadband penetration, however, that has become the lightning rod for America’s high-tech fall from grace. Today, Russia is no longer the threat. Now, the Chinese are coming!
Ernest Preeg, senior fellow in trade and productivity at Manufacturers Alliance, offers a persuasive case for the Chinese threat in a new report. Consider these observations:
c In 2001, U.S.-manufactured exports were more than double those of China and the following year the two countries had roughly equal levels of exports. China, Preeg predicted, likely will overtake the United States this year to become the No. 1exporting nation for manufacturers.
c The composition of Chinese exports has been shifting rapidly toward advanced technology industries, which now account for about 60 percent of total manufactured exports.
c U.S. manufactured exports grew by only 1 percent per year during 2000-2004, compared with an average 25-percent growth in Chinese exports.
“The U.S. manufacturing sector remains the strong international leader in technological innovation and development, and it can retain its leadership role, together with a resurgent export performance, for the foreseeable future,” Preeg concludes. “This will require, however, a forceful and comprehensive U.S. policy response, at both the international and national levels, which has not yet taken shape.”
U.S. hand-wringing over competitiveness has had a sky-is-falling, fire-drill quality in the past, flush with congressional hearings, presidential pronouncements and alarmist predictions everywhere. For that reason, U.S. policymakers feel obliged to express earnest concern before moving on to the next pressing issue. They’d be well-advised to pay heed to Chicken Little on this one.
