Editorial | US happy to shoot itself in the foot in tech war with China
- America pays high price as it tries to shut out Chinese companies, deny them access to advanced technologies and erode their supply-chain advantages
If war is understood as the willingness to suffer significant self-harm to hurt a rival even more, then the United States and the European Union are really on a warpath against China’s technological rise. The emerging consensus on tech transfer, sanctions and supply chains between Washington and Brussels is starting to look like a full-blown tech war.
Short term, it aims to paralyse the Russian tech industry. But going forward, it clearly targets China.
The aim is to shut out Chinese tech firms, deny them access to advanced technologies and erode their supply-chain advantages. This is an evolving war with multiple fronts, ranging from the rhetorical to the substantial.
A prime example of the former is the grandstanding, almost fantastical legislative proposal co-sponsored by hawkish US Republican Senator Marco Rubio against China’s electronic yuan or e-CNY. More substantial has been the campaign to drag down China’s 5G leads, including killing the once prospering international business of Huawei Technologies Co.
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Is cryptocurrency too risky for China?
The Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act is a remarkable display of tech illiteracy and financial ignorance. It has no practical application in the US, as anybody who conducts transactions currently with China’s merchants or customers do so via existing digitalised payment systems in the yuan – not to be confused with e-CNY.
In the US, there is no real need for anyone to use e-CNY. Even if in future it gains worldwide popularity, it is digitised fiat money and is entirely different from cryptocurrencies, with which Rubio and his fellow sponsor-legislators seem to confuse.
