Thread by @WIRED

The United States' war on Chinese tech giant Huawei isn’t about Huawei. It’s about China. This is a clash over who will dominate the next generation of tech: 5G, advanced computer chips, and AI.

It could trigger the end of a single global internet 1/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

By some accounts, 40% of the world’s population relies on Huawei equipment. It makes phones, tablets, laptops, and other gadgets, but it’s also a global leader in the race to 5G.

A race president Donald Trump says the US must win 2/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

Yet by almost any measure, the US seems set for defeat. The Trump administration has made efforts to encourage 5G growth and innovation, but they appear to be late and underwhelming. China surely will end up with more 5G users than any other country 3/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

The US is projecting its technological anxiety about China and globalization onto a single company: Huawei. In 2018, the US barred government agencies from using Huawei products and brought charges that led to the arrest of the company's CFO in Canada 4/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

The US fears Huawei will help China spy on the west. Officials point to a law China recently enacted that states: “All organizations and citizens shall support, cooperate with, and collaborate in national intelligence work.” 5/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

But government officials also privately concede there’s no evidence Huawei’s products have ever been compromised by Chinese intelligence; there’s no smoking gun that they will even wink or nod at 6/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

Ironically, the Trump administration's crusade against Huawei might accelerate Chinese tech dominance. Huawei has taken the first steps toward developing its own operating system and has invested so much in chip development it could put US jobs at risk 7/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

For now, Huawei is stuck in a geopolitical vise—and the stakes are enormous. If the US implements a full ban on Huawei products, an idea it has toyed with, it could mark the beginning of the end of a one-world internet 8/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

Two separate tech ecosystems could form. One in North America and Europe, dominated by Nokia, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple. The other in Asia and the Southern Hemisphere, by Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu 9/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

Despite the recent easing of trade tensions between the US and China, Washington's war on Huawei is forcing consumers, companies, and whole countries to decide how they see the world going forward.

Will it be the Chinese way or the Western way? 10/ wired.trib.al/UbOvAxf

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