China

China has utilized numerous illegitimate tools in pursuit of global leadership in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, including IP theft, forced labor, and stealing genetic information. This must be met with a swift and forceful response from U.S. policymakers.

China is becoming an increasingly capable competitor in the global pharmaceutical industry, with growing strengths at every level of the biopharmaceutical supply chain. Responding to this challenge will require a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy, with strong cross-agency collaboration, to advance U.S. biopharmaceutical competitiveness.

Whether Washington sustains a policy response equal to the challenge China poses or takes a timeout while Xi runs up the score remains an open question.

The U.S. government does not need to create a Board to manage trade with China—it needs to use all its available tools to urge China to conduct economic relations in accordance with established trade rules, commitments which China has already clearly and unequivocally made to the United States and to other global trade partners.

If the China challenge is real, the West needs to get serious about its techno-industrial policy. This means a more active state in tech, trade, and industry, a prospect certain to rile free-market advocates who imagine that “even if the US is a hollowed-out economy, at least we will be free.”

Foreign governments increasingly use online speech laws to pressure U.S. platforms into censoring constitutionally protected content, while sovereign immunity leaves American companies with little legal recourse. Wyoming's GRANITE Act offers a promising model, but meaningful protection will ultimately require Congress to amend federal sovereign immunity laws.

China has become an increasingly capable competitor in the global biopharmaceutical industry. To remain competitive, the United States should double down on policies to ensure that it offers the world’s leading environment to support private sector life sciences innovation.

Adversarial AI distillation poses a growing threat to U.S. technological leadership, national security, and AI safety by enabling foreign actors to extract the capabilities of frontier models without authorization. Policymakers should strengthen legal and technical defenses against industrial-scale model theft while ensuring any response preserves legitimate AI research, innovation, and the responsible use of distillation.

Boeing and Airbus have long dominated the global commercial aircraft industry in production and innovation. But the rise of COMAC—China’s government-created, mercantilist-fueled national champion—threatens the foundations of market-based commercial aviation.

Between 2005 and 2024, Chinese firms received approximately 3 to 8 times more subsidies as competitor firms in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.