From now on, when speaking of America, we always keep China in mind. The whole world seems to be doing the same. This is because China challenged what America considers unchallengeable — its technological leadership. But the real balance of power is now such that China, which has managed to focus on its priorities, is going forward in this sphere, leaving America behind. Thus, the Chinese and their transnational company Huawei are now ahead of the rest of the world in the development of 5G telecommunications networks.
If someone has questions, Huawei now has 180,000 employees and provides its services in over 170 countries around the world. Huawei was founded in China as a private company during the years of Gorbachev's perestroika, in 1987. Ten years later, Russia became its first foreign market. Now they have impressive results. Of course, Korea's Samsung phones are now the most popular in the world, but China's Huawei is the second most popular. They put America's iPhones into third place. The US is very sensitive about it. Washington doesn't observe the proprieties in such cases.
Washington is orderings its allies to ban Huawei’s 5G networks in their countries, even if contracts have already been signed. The daughter of Huawei’s CEO was arrested in Canada at the request of the Americans. This is unlikely to be of any help, but simply there seems to be a hysteria in the US. In response, the Chinese arrested two prominent Canadians, just in case, as bargaining chips.
But this isn't the biggest thing. Beijing is acting on a larger scale. In fact, they're buying Africa with its resources, uniting Eurasia through the new Silk Road, building relations with Russia, and are aiming at becoming the leader in AI development. Entire cities are being built for this near Beijing and in the south of China, but now, by the total capacity of supercomputers, China, not the US, is first in the world.
There's another piece of news. Last Friday, we learned that to test various theories of particle physics, China is already building a supercollider, the largest hadron collider on the planet, a monster with a circumference of 62 miles. Let me remind you that the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, built with Russia's participation, is 16 miles in circumference. It's the largest one in the world, so far. Today, it is still the largest experimental facility on the planet. In China, there will be one four times as large by 2028. The published project is a bid for global leadership in the field of particle physics.
Against this background, American sanctions, trade wars, and the refusal to negotiate security issues, and illegal arrests, whether of Russians or Chinese, look like futile, archaic actions. In truth, they're extremely unpleasant.
Here are Alexander Khristenko and Anastasiya Sakhovskaya reporting on the clash of titans between China and the USA from the two capitals.
It's difficult to recognize this tired, frightened woman as the top manager of one of the largest corporations in the world. Meng Wanzhou is the CFO, which is actually the second highest role, in the Chinese company Huawei. They hugged her, as if in an attempt to protect and support her when she was leaving the court and put her into an SUV. The judge released Wanzhou on bail of $7.5 million under round-the-clock in-person surveillance. They also put a GPS bracelet on her. Prior to that, Wanzhou spent nearly two weeks in a Canadian jail after she was arrested at the Vancouver airport while in transit at the request of the US without any explanation.
Presumably, Huawei's violation of the US sanctions against Iran is involved. By all indications, the representatives of the global financial and technological elite, in this case, the Chinese, haven't been treated like that in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada: "We are a country with an independent judicial system; the judicial authorities will make decisions without any political interference. There's an investigation going on, and it is inappropriate for me to comment on it."
But Donald Trump commented on it, and he did it in such a way that there is now little doubt about the political nature of this story. The US president claimed that he could interfere with the arrest of Huawei's CFO if it helped the US to sign a trade deal with China. The Justice Department rejected this option, saying that they are engaged in the prosecution of violators of American laws, but not in trade. But Secretary of State Pompeo supported Trump's approach.
Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State: "When making any decisions, we always need to adopt a balanced approach and take the US's interests into consideration, especially in the international arena".
Beijing seems to have understood at once that true gentlemen always play by the rules, and if that doesn't work, they change the rules. That's why the response was severe. In China, two Canadians were arrested on suspicion of undermining national security. The Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland meticulously picked her words.
Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Foreign Minister: "A Canadian citizen contacted us because Chinese officials asked him questions face-to-face. But since then, we haven't managed to contact him".
In the US, the State Department also made an alarming statement about China's retaliatory actions.
Robert Palladino, Deputy Spokesperson of the State Department: "We urge China to stop all forms of arbitrary detention and to respect freedoms within the framework of international consular conventions and the obligations in the field of protecting human rights".
Meanwhile, in Congress, they began to frighten its allies with Huawei. They can't let the Europeans switch, for example, to the advanced Chinese 5G technology, which, unlike the American one, is already available on the market.
Ted Cruz, Republican Senator: "The Chinese company Huawei has put itself in a dominant position by providing a communications infrastructure throughout the world".
The USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, which are participants in total signals intelligence in the framework of the Five Eyes project, resent this. They're worried about a possible leakage of personal user data.
Bill Priestap, Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division: "The user data these companies possess can be used by the Chinese government however they want. That's what I'm extremely concerned about".
Ultimately, their claims are on China itself.
John Cornyn, Republican Senator: "China is an economic monster that has no respect for the authority of law".
But despite the intimidation, many countries are determined to cooperate with Beijing. The arrest of Huawei's top manager is a declaration of war in the field of high technology. There's a battle for control over global communications in the near future, which means to dominate the world. So this clash between the USA and China is just the beginning.
Alexander Khristenko, Nikolai Koskin for Vesti Nedeli from Washington, USA.
