PERILOUS STAKES FOR
BOTH SUPERPOWERSYou might have noticed that things haven’t
been entirely harmonious between the U.S.
and China lately – well, even less so than they
normally are, we could say. Earlier this month,
the Trump administration added Huawei to
a trade blacklist that effectively prohibited
American businesses from doing business
with the Chinese tech titan. But what are the
likely implications of this brewing spat for the
U.S., China, Huawei and the world – including
ordinary technology users?
As one may expect, there has been a wide
range of reactions to the U.S. government’s bold
move, although there is at least consensus that
it could be an extremely significant one insofar
as the ongoing ‘trade war’ between the two
countries is concerned.
Indeed, it has been suggested that the
development marks not just another
tactical move in a trade war, but actually the
commencement of a ‘tech cold war’ with its
own ‘iron curtain’ that, in the words of The
New York Times, “threatens to speed up the
development of two technology worlds,
further isolating one-fifth of Internet users.”
AN EVER-WIDENING DIVIDE – WITH
POTENTIALLY DIRE CONSEQUENCES
FOR ORDINARY USERSTech columnist for the American newspaper,
Li Yuan, observed about the news that “China
has spent nearly two decades building a digital
wall between itself and the rest of the world, a
one-way barrier designed to keep out foreign