US should reboot its tech approach

Over the past year, by putting dozens of Chinese companies, institutes and universities on blacklists, the US administration has tried to block their normal business and academic activities in the United States, and restrict US companies working with them.

Now, the administration has tightened up its visa policy for Chinese students and scholars, and is stepping up its investigations into those already studying and working in the US.

It is also lobbying other countries to follow its lead.

Yet whatever charges it directs at these targets, whether it be information theft or threatening national security, Washington has never presented any substantial evidence to justify its allegations. In contrast, the world has accumulated plenty of evidence to prove that it is the US that is doing such things in an organized and systematic manner, even in the countries that are supposedly its allies.

The technological sanctions it is trying to impose upon China, which are to contain the latter’s rise in certain fields, such as the 5G telecommunications, where the US now lags behind, are actually self-harming.

How it is trying to throttle Huawei, a leading player in 5G, is nothing but an upgraded version of how it dismantled Alstom, a French telecom company that used to lead its US counterparts seven years ago.

There are many such examples showing that technological advantage of the US in many fields is partly the result of political maneuvering.

The fast development of the global supply chain over the past few years means what the US attacks is not only a particular entity it has blacklisted but also its downstream and upstream partners, including those in the US, which is evident in that the US administration, urged by Huawei’s US suppliers, has continuously delayed implementing its ban on exports to Huawei.

It is estimated if Washington completely bans US semiconductor exports to China, the US companies in the related industries will lose about 18 percent of the global market share and 37 percent of their sales revenue, and even if the current restrictions are maintained, their loss will still be nearly half that much.