By Mike Whitney
February 24, 2020 "Information
Clearing House" - The Trump administration’s
appalling treatment of Huawei shows that the United
States will risk anything, even a nuclear
conflagration with China, to maintain its tenuous
grip on global power.
Huawei is China’s behemoth
technology company that has recently come under fire
by the Trump administration for violating sanctions
against Iran and for providing network equipment
that (allegedly) poses security risks for its
customers. Both charges are baseless, but they’re
being used as the pretext for launching a full-blown
war on China’s telecom-equipment giant.
Huawei’s troubles stem from
the fact that the company has taken the lead in
fifth generation wireless technology (5-G) and left
the US behind eating their dust. The situation
creates an insurmountable problem for the US which
wants to preserve its role as global superpower into
the next century. That dream will not be realized if
China dominates communications technology and
continues to be the industry leader in
next-generation mobile infrastructure. That’s why
Trump has taken off the gloves and is preparing to
do whatever it takes to sabotage Huawei and prevent
its cutting edge infrastructure technology from
being installed around the world.
It’s worth noting that the
administration has abandoned any pretense that it is
seeking a market-based solution for dealing with
Huawei. Uncle Sam is not looking for ways to beat
the Chinese colossus fair and square. If that was
the case, the Trump team would provide a funding
stream that would generate the innovations that
would help US companies become more competitive in
the future. So far, that hasn’t happened. Instead,
Trump has taken the low road and imposed unilateral
sanctions on Huawei for trading with Iran. The US is
also aggressively harassing Huawei’s customers and
threatening them with stiff penalties if they
integrate the Chinese company’s products into their
own systems. Lastly, Washington is warning of
military action if China does not comply with US
diktats and accept its role as the world’s biggest
producer of cheap goods for grossly-indebted
American consumers. The US wants China to ignore its
historic destiny and meekly become a cog in
Washington’s geriatric “rules-based” order. But
China has no intention of becoming Washington’s
lackey. China’s leaders are determined to defend the
country’s sovereignty, implement its own economic
model, and seize the opportunity to become the
world’s biggest and most prosperous economic
powerhouse.
