The US and China have been at odds for some time, but the Pelosi visit to Taiwan and the Chinese reaction to it will deepen the schism in the tech world and bring tech companies closer to governments.
One of the key events in the rupturing of relations between the USA and China was a speech by Vice President Mike Pence in October 2018 at the Hudson Institute, which was breathtaking in its hostility to China. The speech was followed two months later by the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, in Canada at the bequest of the Trump administration. At this point, the fracturing relationship between the US and China begun to also run through the global technology industry.
The Trump administration’s policy towards China was a rare example of them fashioning and then leading the consensus across the American political, industrial and military complex. Many corporate leaders in the US who disdained the style and content of Trump’s politics in general, were glad of his scolding of China, and to a large extent felt that a watershed had arrived in this relationship where China would no longer ‘import’ innovation from the West in return for exporting deflation.
On their side, Chinese policymakers, many of whom had studied and lived in America in order to better understand it, only to be confronted by an untypical American leader, also felt that a watershed had arrived – China is a now a world power and needs to assert itself. Indeed, since that period, China has managed to aggravate most of its neighbours across Asia (skirmishing with India troops, haranguing Australia and provoking Japan for instance).
In that context, China’s (over) reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, is itself a watershed. They might very easily have dismissed this event as showboating by a publicity hungry Western politician but didn’t.
The military led response betrayed much about Xi Jinping’s leadership, China’s reading of its military readiness and regional standing.
