6 JULY 2019
s your “designed by Apple in
California, assembled in China”
iPhone going to be one of the last
to brandish that phrase?In the last two decades, Apple and other
U.S. tech companies shifted production and
assembly to China. But the ongoing U.S.-
China trade war could drastically change the
technology landscape. As China pursues its
own tech ambitions, a threatened U.S. (and
Trump administration) is moving to cut ties
with the Asian superpower.Huawei Technologies, one of China’s tech
champions, has been put on a government
blacklist, limiting its ability to buy from
suppliers reliant on American technology.
Sure, the U.S. sees Huawei as a potential
threat to national security, but not a few
have speculated that Trump’s reasons
are probably more economic rather than
security-related. Huawei is one of those
leading in next-generation 5G wireless
networks, and the U.S. wants to rein back
China’s dominance. The solution? Drum
up fear against China, who’s not exactly
enjoying high trustworthiness scores. (Of
course, if proven, it is perfectly reasonable
to limit Chinese access to information and
technologies that could put the U.S.—or any
nation, for that matter—at risk.)The U.S.-China war is more than just trade
though. It’s a battle for tech supremacy—
from robotics to artificial intelligence
and from autonomous vehicles to lunar
exploration. It’s a tech cold war where two
superpowers, who used to seek a win-win
world, now have a sour relationship and
are pushing the world into a tech divide. If
a nation agrees to install Chinese networks
or infrastructure, U.S. will probably cut
ties with it under the guise of American
national security. On the other hand, if
a nation supports Team America, it will
have to eschew Chinese infrastructure and
technologies, which are currently one of the
best right now.This tech cold war, like any war, leaves no
winners at all.No one wins a war. It is true, there are degrees
of loss, but no one wins.- Brock Chisholm, World War I veteran