One world, two systems in the 5G race

By Rana Foroohar, Financial Times

I recently had the pleasure of hosting a State Department led delegation of young international leaders at the Financial Times’ office in New York. The group, which included economists, government officials, journalists, NGO workers and private sector folks from over a dozen countries, were visiting as part of a US government sponsored economic co-operation programme (here, let me stop and say thank you to all the public servants in the Swamp who continue to try and do this sort of diplomacy, given the current environment).

At one point, I asked the group what they considered to be the most under-reported story by American media. The consensus: how China is filling the diplomatic and economic vacuum created by America in places like Africa, eastern Europe, south-east Asia, and so on. They shared a variety of fascinating examples, from ports built by the Chinese (who will seize property if debts aren’t paid) to vocational training offered by Beijing. But the most important influence was around the rollout of Chinese equipment and standards in 5G — several participants had stories about how China’s technology was being adopted in their own countries.

As Swampians know, I have been writing about decoupling for some time, and was one of the first to bet that the US and China would create separate technology ecosystems. Every day brings a new beat in that story — witness national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien’s recent comment that Huawei has the ability to retrieve sensitive information in the next-generation wireless services it is building for countries in Asia, Europe and elsewhere. The idea is that such “back-doors” could present security risks for US allies (Huawei is already banned from use by US government agencies and contractors).

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