EU officials want to set up a €100 billion wealth fund to bolster “European champions” against American and Chinese business rivals like Google, Apple and Alibaba. The proposal for a so-called European Future Fund appears in an unusually radical raft of plans that European Commission officials want to put onto the agenda of their president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, whose mandate begins on November 1.
For years, Europeans were lulled into thinking that the peace and prosperity of the immediate post-Cold War period would be self-sustaining. But, two decades into the twenty-first century, it is clear that the Old Continent miscalculated and now must catch up to the digital revolution.
As China transformed, many Western scholars and policymakers predicted that economic reform and integration into the world economy would force the country to liberalize politically and become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. The idea, sometimes called “convergence theory,” was that as China grew wealthier, it would become more like the United States. The theory was comforting, but it did not pan out.
To get a sense of how thoroughly the global digital economy is dominated by the US and China, look no further than a recent list of the world’s most valuable internet-based companies. Eleven of the top 20 are from the US; the remainder are based in China.
Read Here – Boston Consulting Group
In the restaurants and coffee shops at the heart of southern China’s hi-tech powerhouse the main topics of conversation have shifted from industry gossip such as IPOs, mergers and innovations to the trade war with the US and Washington’s campaign against Huawei.
Read Here – South China Morning Post
Also Read – China Mobilises Diplomats To Drum Up Global Support Ahead Of G20
China’s national security issues – from Taiwan to the South China Sea and food security – will be at stake as the United States expands the trade war, according to some of Beijing’s most experienced US hands. Beijing has long claimed that national interests were at the heart of its main differences with Washington in the trade talks but it had not specified them publicly.
Some Chinese diplomats have responded to US moves to blacklist Huawei with accusations the decision was “politically motivated”, others have threatened retaliation, and at least one has posted goofy memes on social media in defence of the tech giant.
The news this week that the U.S. government blacklisted China’s telecommunications giant Huawei from its suppliers was received rather viscerally. It’s “the most insane decision,” the CEO of Huawei’s chipmaking subsidiary HiSilicon said in a memo that went viral on Chinese social media. In its own response, Huawei couldn’t help but scornfully add the words “so-called,” a familiar tic of Chinese state media, before mentioning the dreaded Entity List, the U.S. government blacklist where it now finds itself lumped in with international arms traffickers and Russian oligarchs.
Mr Jack Dorsey might have his political views and Mr Donald Trump might have many twigs to pick with Twitter, but there should not be any argument over who’s the best ambassador and brand builder for the social media platform.
Read Here – ThisDayAndThat
We often forget that the Internet is not as wireless as it seems. Most online data still flow through physical fiber-optic cables laid out across several hundred thousand miles of ocean floor. If a shark were to bite through a cable some or all of the Internet could come to a standstill. These days, however, observers spend less time worrying about underwater fauna than about Russia’s submarines, which have been taking a special interest in ocean-bed cables in recent years.
