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Can the US Stop China From Controlling the Next Internet Age? (nytimes.com)
Tech executives worry China will turn to tit-for-tat arrests of Americans in response to the detention of Meng Wanzhou. And the worries don't stop there. Kara Swisher, writing at The New York Times: Imagine, if you will (and you should), a big American tech executive being detained over unspecified charges while on a trip to Beijing. That is exactly what a number of Silicon Valley executives told me they are concerned about after the arrest this week of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom company Huawei, in Canada at the behest of United States officials. "It's worrisome, because it's an escalation we did not need," one executive said, referring to the already tense trade talks between the two countries. "What China will do, given all the existing tensions, is anyone's guess."
No one I spoke to would talk on the record, out of fear of antagonizing either side and also because no one knows exactly what is happening. But many expressed worry about the possibility of tit-for-tat arrests. While everyone focuses on the drama of the arrest -- Ms. Meng was grabbed while changing planes at the airport -- and its effect on the trade talks and stock prices, to my mind there is a much more important fight brewing, and it is about tech hegemony. Specifically, who will control the next internet age, and by whose rules will it be run?
Until recently, that answer was clearly the United States, from which the Internet sprang, wiring the world together and, in the process, resulting in the greatest creation of power and wealth in history. While China has always had a strong technology sector, in recent years it has significantly escalated its investment, expertise and innovation, with major support from the government. That hand-in-glove relationship creates obvious issues, and the Trump administration is right to stop pretending that China does not present a threat both from security and innovation perspectives. Further reading: China summons U.S. ambassador, warns Canada of 'grave consequences' if Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is not released.
No one I spoke to would talk on the record, out of fear of antagonizing either side and also because no one knows exactly what is happening. But many expressed worry about the possibility of tit-for-tat arrests. While everyone focuses on the drama of the arrest -- Ms. Meng was grabbed while changing planes at the airport -- and its effect on the trade talks and stock prices, to my mind there is a much more important fight brewing, and it is about tech hegemony. Specifically, who will control the next internet age, and by whose rules will it be run?
Until recently, that answer was clearly the United States, from which the Internet sprang, wiring the world together and, in the process, resulting in the greatest creation of power and wealth in history. While China has always had a strong technology sector, in recent years it has significantly escalated its investment, expertise and innovation, with major support from the government. That hand-in-glove relationship creates obvious issues, and the Trump administration is right to stop pretending that China does not present a threat both from security and innovation perspectives. Further reading: China summons U.S. ambassador, warns Canada of 'grave consequences' if Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is not released.
They'll put up with it as long as conditions continue to improve. It may not be perfect, but as long as they have a path towards greater personal wealth, there won't be widespread complaints. Perhaps this will change as future generations are born without the knowledge of what China was like prior to economic reforms it enacted, but the people who remember a time when things were far worse will not be so easy to stir up so long as things continue improving. Whether or not the Chinese government can continue to make that happen while maintaining the same level of control that they have historically had is an open question.
China is investing a lot of money in Africa in the same way that the U.S. invested a lot into China, so in some ways it seems as though they are trying to have our lifestyle. Unlike the western world, the Chinese aren't going to feel any guilt over colonialism or the like. Whether they'll be successful or not is another matter, but it's naive to think that the Chinese government is incompetent or incapable of trying to keep itself afloat as China continues to industrialize.
Except for the following market failures:
1) Inability to slow down and stop anthropogenic global warming (and ocean acidification) due to fossil fuel use
2) Inability to stop worldwide rapid ecosystem and biodiversity destruction (terrestrial, oceanic)
3) Inability to stop the rapid reduction of clean freshwater resources worldwide
4) Inability to use sustainable agricultural practices, leading to worldwide soil degradation.
5) Inability to prevent unsustainable increasing rates of consumption of non-renewable resources
6) Near future inability to distribute wealth to rapidly increasing unemployed percentage of population due to automation and AI
and I would be a little cautious about holding up US government as a shining example, being as how it is led by a cartoon character and serves the interests of large corporations over the interests of people.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?