The Guardian is reporting that the tech war just got hot.
China will be replacing all hardware and software with Chinese equivalents. This is the latest escalation in the US-China tech trade war in response to the US ban on Huawei equipment.
China has ordered that all foreign computer equipment and software be removed from government offices and public institutions within three years, the Financial Times reports.
The government directive is likely to be a blow to US multinational companies like HP, Dell and Microsoft and mirrors attempts by Washington to limit the use of Chinese technology, as the trade war between the countries turns into a tech cold war.
The Trump administration banned US companies from doing business with Chinese Chinese[sic] telecommunications company Huawei earlier this year and in May, Google, Intel and Qualcomm announced they would freeze cooperation with Huawei.
By excluding China from western know-how, the Trump administration has made it clear that the real battle is about which of the two economic superpowers has the technological edge for the next two decades.
China already leads in patents
China's 2016 patent application total is greater than the combined total of patent applications filed in 2016 in the United States (605,571), Japan (318,381), South Korea (208,830) and Europe (159,358). These five jurisdictions accounted for 84 percent of all patent applications filed during 2016.
China has been preparing for an all-out IT war.
In May, Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times newspaper in China, said the withdrawal of sharing by US tech companies with Huawei would not be fatal for the company because the Chinese firm has been planning for this conflict "for years" and would prompt the company to develop its own microchip industry to rival America's.
"Cutting off technical services to Huawei will be a real turning point in China's overall research and development and use of domestic chips," he said in a social media post. "Chinese people will no longer have any illusions about the steady use of US technology."
US trade policy may have been meant to pressure China, but that move looks to have just forced an acceleration of the loss of software and hardware orders from American suppliers to China.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:55PM (1 child)
About as reassuring as a new home warranty backed by a salesman in a cheap suit, who you know is on his way to the airport never to return but you don't know where he's going.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:53PM
It's still more sane and reassuring than the US system where Trump can launch nukes if he has a bad day and nobody is legally supposed to be able to stop him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/11/19/no-one-can-prevent-trump-using-nuclear-weapons-experts-say/878673001/ [usatoday.com]
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/14/could-anyone-stop-trump-from-launching-nukes-the-answer-no.html [cnbc.com]
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a24113/presidential-authority-nuclear-weapons/ [popularmechanics.com]
https://www.snopes.com/ap/2017/11/13/anyone-stop-trump-launching-nukes-answer-no/ [snopes.com]
There are some who claim he can't but if you bother to look carefully it's just wishful thinking. Based on the system he really can. All the people down the chain are only supposed to confirm that the order is from Trump, not whether the order makes sense or that Congress etc agree with it.
On the bright side, he does seem to do some checking: https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/trump-told-his-administration-to-check-if-he-can-stop-hurricanes-with-a-nuclear-bomb/ [rawstory.com]
China's leaders are probably intelligent and competent enough to realize that the USA has enough nukes to wipe out all the nice places in China they are living in. So it's the end of their nice lifestyle if they start a nuclear war. They even have their own farms supplying them safe food ( https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-party-has-its-own-safe-food-supply-in-china_1498024.html [theepochtimes.com] ).
I suspect if Trump gets impeached it might affect his lifestyle a bit. He probably wouldn't nuke the world before that, but how sure can you be?