Technology firms increasingly encountering obstacles in the US

Chinese technology companies are finding it increasingly harder to access the United States market, as Washington adopts double standards in investment and trade and leverages national security as ways of preventing these enterprises from expanding in the US, analysts said.

The comments came amid heightened trade tension between the two nations after US President Donald Trump signed a memo on Thursday imposing tariffs on as much as $60 billion worth of Chinese imports. Trump also signed a memorandum to add new investment restrictions on Chinese companies and adding investment restrictions on Chinese companies.

Bai Ming, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce, said the US government’s current trade and investment policy is without doubt “a matter of double standards”.

“The US sees maximizing its own interests as the only standard for fair trade,” said Bai, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, the ministry’s think tank.

According to Bai, the US government often complains about “market access denial” from China toward US companies. But in reality, these allegations are totally unfounded and, on the contrary, Chinese tech companies like Huawei are the true victims of unfair treatment from the US.

Last week, Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the US, announced that it would no longer sell smartphones made by China’s Huawei, the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor.

The move came just several weeks after the US telecom carrier AT&T abandoned Huawei’s phones under reported national security pressure from the US government.

“The US blocks the shipment of Huawei’s smartphones chiefly because Huawei is a Chinese company,” Bai said, “This is in sharp contrast to the situation in China, which treats goods imported from the US fairly. We can see that nearly every US tech company has a business presence in China, with US smartphones particularly popular here.”

Bai noted that smartphones are only for civil use, and consumers have the right to decide for themselves whether they want to buy Huawei’s products, which are now available in over 170 countries and regions.

Huawei is not the only Chinese company running into trouble in the US. In recent months, a string of Chinese acquisition plans have been blocked due to “national security concerns”. The list includes Ant Financial’s proposed purchase of US money transfer company MoneyGram International and Chinese semiconductor companies’ plans to buy US counterparts.

Liao Tianshu, managing director of Boston Consulting Group Greater China, said the US government’s move to deter Chinese companies from entering the market will hurt local consumers’ interests, as they will have fewer choices when making purchases.