Polar Opposites
“The contours of today’s world, the argument went, are simply incomparable to the decades when the United States and the Soviet Union squared off in an existential struggle for supremacy. The world was said to be too interconnected to easily divide into ideological blocs. Now, lines are being drawn and relations are in free fall, laying the foundation for a confrontation that will have many of the characteristics of the Cold War — and the dangers.” NYT: Caught in ‘Ideological Spiral,’ U.S. and China Drift Toward Cold War.
+ In the latest salvo, the US got the UK to join the Huawei ban. BBC: Huawei 5G kit must be removed from UK by 2027.
+ FBI Director Christopher Wray: “The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. We need to be clear-eyed about the scope of the Chinese government’s ambition. China—the Chinese Communist Party—believes it’s in a generational fight to surpass our country in economic and technological leadership … We’ve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China.” Great backgrounder from Garrett Graff in Wired: Could Trump Win the War on Huawei—and Is TikTok Next?
+ If there is a Tik Tok ban, there will be a lot of excited competitors. (My daughter will also move to China.)