简体中文
By APD writer Dong Yifan
Translated by Jiang Jie
On April 16, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a seven-year ban on Chinese telecommunication company ZTE, prohibiting U.S. companies to sell products, services and technology to the Chinese company.
The so-called company violation of equipment provision to Iran is merely an excuse. It is actually a manifestation of the overall US-China competition in high-tech industries.
The Trump administration has always regarded China as a competitor to the United States. As hawkish characters took positions in security, diplomatic and economic teams, the United States has successively provoked troubles with China on multiple issues, including on the Taiwan Strait and on trade.
The friction in the trade field is particularly evident, and it is increasingly clear that the competition has risen from products to the whole high-tech industry.
In January, the U.S. prohibited the U.S. telecommunication operator Verizon from cooperating with China’s Huawei on mobile phone sales. The same month, the country announced to invest heavily in the development of domestic 5G networks and basic infrastructure construction. In March, it proposed to impose special tariffs on Chinese products worth $50 billion, most of which were high-tech products. The latest ban on ZTE was a merely continuation of this trend.
In fact, the West’s suppression on China’s high-tech industries can be traced back to the establishment of the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls for the embargo and trade restrictions imposed on socialist countries in as early as November 1949. After the Cold War, the United States took the lead in establishing the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Good and Technologies, which continued the blockade. Since China entered the WTO, it has then been accused of intellectual property rights infringement in Western countries.
In recent years, high-tech companies like ZTE and Huawei are slowly changing China’s export structure and improving industrial competitiveness, which triggered anxiety and vigilance in the West.
The European Union regards China's investment in manufacturing industry in Europe as an act to steal away technology advantage, while former US Department of Homeland Security chief information officer Richard Staropoli bluntly called "Made in China 2025" a threat to the US economic hegemony and called for launching a "new cold war" against China in the digital industry.
The latest blockade mainly targets ZTE’s chip supply, which remains reliant on import from the United States and Europe, as ZTE, like its Chinese telecommunications counterparts, has not master the core technologies of chips and integrated circuits used for infrastructure construction.
Cutting off the supply will delay or even disrupt the production of ZTE in base stations, forcing it to abandon the existing domestic and foreign market share.
It is more difficult to conduct independent research and development of the chip of the telecommunication infrastructure than those for mobile phones and computers, as such research and development requires several generations of basic science and electronic engineering studies. It will be even more difficult to overtake the West in a short period of time.
Yet to make China’s high-tech industry and even the national economy truly unrestrained, it is undoubtedly necessary to overcome the barriers set by the West through independent innovation. The sustainable development of China's telecommunications industry is dependent on the localization of the entire industry chain, especially the high-end core technologies.
Dong Yifan，assistant professor of European Studies Institute, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. His research areas covered European economy, EU integration and China-EU relations.
The article reflects the author’s opinion, and not necessarily the views of APD.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
