The US Tech War Against China

David Ingles (left), a Hong Kong-based anchor for Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio  provides coverage of the major macroeconomic stories and trends that shape markets and affect businesses in the Asia Pacific region.

On June 11, 2020, he tweeted: “Most of the things you've seen in the news and will continue to see in the decades to come can be traced back to this one, single chart”:

It's a loaded statement but I daresay he's right. He has hit the nail on the head! 

We already know about the trade war that the US launched against China in 2018. Now, we are also seeing the US escalating the tech war it unleashed against the country; in fact, it is ramping up wave after wave of attacks. 

The ban on Chinese-manufactured drones. The Entity List which means Google are prohibited from working with Huawei on new device models or providing Google's apps for preload or download on these devices. The exclusion of Huawei from accessing US supply chains. 

And on Thursday, Donald Trump (left) issued executive orders that would ban social media apps TikTok and WeChat from operating in the US in 45 days if they are not sold by their Chinese-owned parent companies. 

The bully that is the US is hiding behind national security to justify its nefarious actions and using state power to shut China out of the information economy. It is simply an excuse to oppress China businesses. From DJI and Huawei to ByteDance and Tencent, the US is determined to cripple China.

The US can antagonize, provoke and become hostile to China – but it should know that it won’t be able to derail China’s march forward! The United States of America should realize it doesn’t have a monopoly on innovation and if I may add, it knows it is no match for China!

Milton Mueller (right), a Georgia Tech University professor and founder of the Internet Governance Project asserts: "The Trump administration think they can somehow stifle China's development as an economic and technological power. The idea that we can stop Chinese development by cutting them off is stupid, it's not going to happen". 

That aside, I wish China will stop rolling with the punches – and fight back!