Chinese executives raise concerns about US blacklist

This article is co-written by Sarah Dai.

The US war against Chinese tech champions was absent from speeches, presentations, and panel discussions onstage at high-profile conferences in China over the weekend, but offstage, the topic was discussed in hushed tones as the industry weighed the costs of an escalating tech cold war.

The US government’s requirement that American companies get special permission to do business with Huawei Technologies, the world’s No. 1 telecommunications network equipment maker, has dominated headlines all week, with a succession of companies including Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm suspending their dealings with the Shenzhen giant.

Photo credit Kārlis Dambrāns

More companies, like surveillance companies Hikvision and iFlyTek, are reportedly being considered for the trade blacklist, which brought ZTE close to ruin last year by depriving it of access to American technology.

The move prompted Huawei owners outside China to sell their phones for fear they would turn into expensive paperweights. Shares of chip makers like Qualcomm tumbled as investors weighed the potential of retaliatory measures against companies that depended on China for much of their profits.

At the Big Data Expo in Guiyang on Sunday, visitors were greeted by a large screen displaying a letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping, who urged all nations to work together to meet the challenges thrown up by the adoption of new technologies like big data and AI.

Miao Wei, the Minister for Industry and Information Technology, echoed Xi’s letter in his keynote speech. Apple’s Greater China managing director Isabel Ge Mahe said that the company was “proud to be able to help with China’s economic development,” citing its collaboration with Beijing Normal University to create a coding course for children.

Similarly, no mention of the tech war was made at the ambitiously named Global Artificial Intelligence Technology Conference in Nanjing, where the participants were overwhelmingly from China.

Offstage, though, the topic of Huawei and China’s reliance on US technology loomed large.

The chief scientist of a large Chinese financial services company told the Post that no single company, not even an American one, can withstand the full frontal assault like the one that the US is unleashing on Huawei.

“This isn’t a tech war, it is a real war, albeit one without guns and cannons,” said the chief scientist, who like most of those interviewed, asked not to be named to speak candidly about a politically sensitive topic. “America has a lot of influence and many friends. If Huawei falls, China can only sue for peace. The US can then continue to use this tactic and forever keep China from challenging it for first place.”

“One has to see whether China can use strategies like those during the Warring States period (475-221 BC) to give up some interests and weaken America’s alliance,” the scientist said, displaying a common habit of many Chinese to draw lessons from the country’s long history in dealing with external and internal foes. “At present, the situation looks grave, and I feel there’s no solution in the short term.”

Another executive, who heads the data lab of a major Chinese tech company, similarly expressed concern that the present situation may deteriorate and result in a splintering of the global tech world.