tirsdag 19. mars 2019

Unless democracies take action, China will set the terms of the next industrial revolution.


In the 19th century, global power belonged to those who controlled the seas. In the 21st, it will belong to those who rule over our digital highways.If the West fails to take swift action, the world’s autocrats and non-democratic states — led by China — will be the ones to win this race.

A divided and sluggish West has failed to keep up with strategic gluts of Chinese investment, and its disjointed approach on how to manage overtures by Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has laid bare a dangerous lack of strategy.

Across Europe, responses range from wariness — in Denmark, for example — to a more open attitude in Hungary, Italy and the Czech Republic. Even within the Anglophone “Five Eyes” intelligence community, governments can’t seem to agree on how to respond to the threat of potential “backdoors” in Huawei’s technology. The United States, Australia and New Zealand have taken a restrictive approach, while the United Kingdom insists it can mitigate potential risks — much to Washington’s chagrin.