Opinion: China in the New Multipolar World

Washington’s trade disputes and on-going negotiations with Beijing are now, even more apparently than late last year, part of a wider American strategy to contain China. The core battlegrounds are wherever Huawei aspires to build 5G networks, and whenever nations consider joining Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. The United States’ resistance to Chinese technological development is both political and commercial. Having failed to invest enough in wireless innovation over the last two decades, U.S. telecommunications companies are struggling to build leading-edge, globally-compatible 5G systems to compete with Huawei. Washington strives to restrict China’s ability to acquire Western technology, but underestimates the degree to which China is developing its own.