December 4, 2019

Trump's 'xenophobia' against China, Chinese students and Huawei

By: Azhar Azam

*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-01/Trump-s-xenophobia-against-China-Chinese-students-and-Huawei-M3Z5yTYQSc/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/01/WS5de3732ba310cf3e3557b2bd.html

Most of the US problems are not China’s fault; China is not going to collapse under its weight; China won’t become a Western-style democracy; and America needs to look into its mistakes and failures – said former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich in his recent book “Trump vs. China: Facing America’s Greatest Threat.”

Gingrich also stressed China is not responsible that 89% of Baltimore’s 8th grade students cannot pass their math exams or there was a dramatic increase in Chinese graduate students in science; China didn’t guide the US defense bureaucracy to create a “military industrial complex”; and there is every reason to believe that China has been catching up rapidly and could outpace America soon.

Trump’s supporter underscored that China is not the reason why old and entrenched US companies could not develop a global strategy for 5G over 11 years and extoled Chinese company Huawei for working hard to become world leader in wireless technology, by providing better services and most advanced equipment and thereby is poised to win global 5G race through Chinese spending of $8-10 billion since 2015.

The remarks did not come from an “authoritarian” or “totalitarian” Chinese official or “hawkish” state-owned media outlet, these are the comments made by harsh China critic who has accused that Beijing “routinely sign things then cheats”, alleged Communist Part of China (CPP) for lessening freedom and bolstering influence across the globe, labeled China’s economic policies “China’s con game”, and backed Hong Kong’s violent protestors in the recent past.

The dilemma evolves if China was not responsible for the US botches to match its bureaucratic, scholastic, military, economic and technological growth, as Gingrich described, why Trump administration and the US Congress is wailing at Beijing?

It appears as if from trade and technology to military and defense, the US has succumbed to China and is now pursuing to compete with it unfairly by redoubling its efforts to push Beijing back through blinkered moves including slapping tariffs, putting curbs on its tech giants and wreaking havoc in Chinese autonomous regions such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The US is deeply threatened by the Chinese graduates studying in America as well, particularly in the areas of robotics, aviation and high-technology manufacturing. Last June, the US President even assured to enact limits on visas to Chinese students, citing them national security risk for the country over “intellectual property theft” by Beijing.

Although he vowed “to be very good to Chinese students” during an interaction with China Media Group (CMD) in White House on October 11, the Q1-2019 Chinese Ministry of Education’s data, showing a notable 13.5% rise in declined Chinese student visa applications from 3.2% in 2018, outrightly refuted the president’s claims.

Since the statistics further disclosed that nearly all visa rejections were made to Chinese students going on state-sponsored scholarships, the special treatment of Chinese STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) graduates expounded American exasperation towards Chinese technology growth, which was bluntly replicated in its stringent regulatory measures on Huawei and other companies from Mainland.

But US seriously underrated Huawei’s strengthen. Before US government imposed restrictions on American companies on supply of components for Huawei products, Chinese tech giant preempted the forthcoming checks from Trump administration and was well-prepared with a backup plan in its quest to “stand on top of the world.”

Huawei and others immediately unveiled their most-advanced indigenously-built chips to end their reliance on American semiconductors. At IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Huawei presented the new Kirin 990 all-in-one artificial intelligence and 5G chip and later on the conglomerate started to sell the other Balong 711 4G chipsets to the third parties.

US obdurate curbs did not make any impact on Huawei revenues either that’s smartphone shipments hit 200 million units, two months earlier than it did in 2018. Just a week before, the electronics heavyweight jolted the global tech industry stating that it generated 24.4% more revenue of $86 billion as compared to previous year while its peer US competitor Apple saw a double decline in Q3-2019.

Six months after the US launched a tech war against China; Trump administration is scratching its head rather than regulating the largest manufacturer of the telecommunication equipment and second-largest mobile phone supplier worldwide.

US government is so topsy-turvy that one side its Commerce Department extended third 90-day reprieve to Huawei allowing American companies to do business with it and on the flipside, US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) barred its $8.5 billion a year Universal Service Fund (USF) to purchase equipment and services from Huawei and ZTE.

While the FCC action aimed at marginalizing the two Chinese companies from taking part in procurement process, Commerce Department’s third extension to Huawei implied that US was finding it increasingly problematic to find a better supplier, which could meet the cost and quality offered by Huawei and because American firms were expected to suffer loss of $14 billion on account of semiconductor chips and other components sales to Huawei.

Following its embarrassing failure to impede Huawei’s growth, Washington is taking yet another insular line to impede Huawei growth by raising the self-styled specter from Chinese firm in upcoming NATO meeting and is also reportedly weighing to influence foreign suppliers to cut off supplies to Huawei.

But US would never be able to dictate international supply chains that are not constrained to bow the American hegemonic behavior at the cost their national and business interests and also the current regulations do not permit any country the authority to block Huawei’s shipments from other than the US.