Donald Trump and the Republicans’ hatred of California may crush Silicon Valley’s advantages over China
Robert Delaney says those sure that the US ‘free market’ approach beats China’s state-led tech strategy should worry that California, home to Silicon Valley, remains a favourite target of Republican disdain
Ideally, Washington and Beijing would understand that the most sensible way forward is through extensive cross-border investment and collaboration, with the national security risks inherent in such exchanges kept in check through well-defined and reasonably transparent government reviews.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Paranoia and toxic politics will most likely keep such efforts from prevailing.
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Those confident that China’s state-led tech innovation model will undermine itself and ensure Silicon Valley reigns supreme are overlooking an unnerving trend in American politics: a rising tide of Republican hatred for California, the home of US tech innovation.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, facing a closer-than-expected fight against an insurgent Democrat to hold onto his seat in the upcoming US midterm elections, has reduced California to “tofu and silicon and dyed hair”.
California might pursue liberal social policies that make Republicans of all stripes groan, but in spite of – or perhaps because of – these policies, California’s entrepreneurs are the primary drivers of the 21st-century economy. The embrace of Trumpian politics, or the refusal among moderate Republicans to disavow them, is now threatening to undo this success story.
Reaganite Republicans got the tax cuts and deregulation drive they’ve wanted for decades. California, they have decided, will have to weather the storm on its own. That’s bad for American tech innovation. The titans of Silicon Valley will now need to devote resources to an unnecessary PR battle and the possibility of high-profile lawsuits if the pillorying of California continues.
And it’s good for China’s tech innovators, which already have the benefit of lax data privacy regulations and vast financial resources provided by the government.
The consequences of the Republicans’ anti-California campaign go beyond tech supremacy and touch on the clash of civilisations more broadly.
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As American cultural psychologist Richard Nisbett said in his 2004 book,The Geography of Thought, “the values of individuality, freedom, rationality, and universalism became progressively more dominant and articulated as [civilisation] moved westward… ”
True this. These ideals have manifested themselves in California – the last resort of the Enlightenment’s westward expansion – more firmly than anywhere else in the world.
If Trump’s Republicans advance their anti-California agenda to the point where the state’s tech giants are on their knees, they should be accused of forfeiting a civilisation.
Robert Delaney is the Post's US bureau chief, based in New York