June 15th The Economist It has the following titles and subtitles:
US Attempt to Assassinate Huawei Is Backfiring
Companies are becoming more powerful and less vulnerable.
But if the reference to Nietzsche is a bit out of date, the story itself contains some important insights.
The US attack continues. In May, for example, regulators revoked special licenses for two US tech giants, Intel and Qualcomm, to sell Huawei chips for laptops. But Huawei not only survived, it thrived again. Its net profit for the first quarter of this year was 19.7 billion yuan ($2.7 billion), up 564% year-on-year. It has re-entered the mobile phone business. Sales of telecommunications equipment are picking up again. And this is largely due to replacing foreign technology in its products with domestic components and programs, making it much less vulnerable to US hostilities in the future. After failing to kill Huawei, Uncle Sam’s attack has made Huawei even stronger.
diplomacy There’s also a great article about our trade relationship with China.
China, increasingly isolated from Western markets, has less to lose from a potential confrontation with the West and therefore less incentive to defuse tensions. As long as China remains closely linked to the United States and Europe through trade in high-value goods that cannot be easily replaced, the West will be much more effective in deterring China from taking destabilizing measures. China and the United States are strategic competitors, not enemies. Nevertheless, when it comes to U.S.-China trade relations, there is wisdom in the old adage, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
One advantage of globalization is that it makes countries much more interdependent. If your well-being depends on your interactions with countries around the world, you are less likely to engage in hostile actions that endanger those supply chains. Once you are cut off from the rest of the world, there is little incentive to avoid reckless behavior, as seen in places like North Korea.
