Episode 2111 - June 21 - Tiếng Anh - Phần 2 của 4 - Cuộc Chiến Công Nghệ Mỹ-Trung - Vina Technology at AI time - Lê Quang Văn | Podcast - Nhac.vn

The United States–China ‘tech war’ - Decoupling and the case of Huawei – Part 2 of 4

Maria Ryan and Stephen Burman. Global Policy, Wiley. 29 February 2024.

This has significant implications for the likelihood, or not, of a wider decoupling between the United States and China. We conclude that, despite the ambiguous outcome of the sanctions, at present Washington appears to be on course to forsake part of its traditional hegemonic role as the guarantor of global markets in favour of an approach prioritising national interests and the preservation of as much primacy as possible

2 Targeting Huawei

After the Cold War US policy was oriented towards integrating China into the ‘liberal international order’—an extension of the engagement strategy that dated back to President Nixon's opening to China in 1972 (Wang, 2021). Yet fears about the consequences of commercial engagement with China were ever-present. After President Xi announced a new level of ambition for China's economic development, President Obama felt he could not trust Xi's assurances of restraint. Greater US scepticism as to China's intentions led to a hawkish trajectory. President Trump complained that China was dumping goods, taking American jobs, manipulating its currency, and in the December 2017 National Security Strategy the threat was elevated by designating China a ‘revisionist power’ and formally calling an end to the era of engagement. Trump's trade war did not target Chinese tech – rather it was supposed to address the trade deficit – but it symbolised the new adversarial approach to Beijing

Warnings about Chinese telecommunications companies, and Huawei in particular, emerged in 2007 when investment by Huawei and Bain Capital in 3Com Corporation, a US digital electronics company, was investigated by the Congressional Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) because 3Com provided cybersecurity systems to the US military. When CFIUS announced it would recommend that the President block the deal, it was pre-emptively abandoned. In 2010, Huawei and ZTE, another leading Chinese telecoms firm, were excluded from a multi-billion contract from US firm Sprint Nextel Corporation to supply telecommunications equipment. This was in response to Congressional concern, expressed in a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and others by a group of US Senators, that Sprint Nextel's work for US military and law enforcement agencies could be compromised if it contracted Chinese firms.. In 2011, Huawei dropped takeover of US server firm, Leaf, which it had agreed to buy for $2 m, because a presidential veto was expected after a CFIUS review said the deal should not go ahead

In response, Huawei published an open letter inviting the US government to conduct ‘a formal investigation of any doubts it may have about Huawei in an effort to reach a clear and accurate conclusion’. This resulted in an investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which reported in October 2012 that ‘The United States should view with suspicion the continued penetration of the U.S. telecommunications market by Chinese telecommunications companies.’ In particular, ‘Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence’. Congress passed legislation in 2013 prohibiting the Departments of Commerce and Justice, NASA, and the National Science Foundation from using appropriated funds to acquire IT systems made or assembled by an entity owned, directed, or subsidised by the Chinese government

By this time, Huawei had built a global business. In the late-1990s, the company was identified as a ‘national champion’ by the Chinese government which gave it access to low-cost financing, R&D funding and tax benefits. Huawei grew to become the dominant telecoms company in China and, by 2001, had offices in 45 countries, including the United States. By 2012, it had surpassed Ericsson and Nokia to become the largest information and communications technology