U.S.-China Showdown Over Big Data to Leave Decades-Long Impact
- ‘All of this is fundamentally an attack on the internet’
- Walls around data would eventually transform supply chains
TikTok, WeChat and Huawei Technologies Co. are just the beginning. What comes next has the potential to reshape the global economy for decades to come.
President Donald Trump’s moves to prevent some of China’s biggest companies from accessing the private data of Americans -- restrictions set to take effect this month -- are part of a broader effort to create “clean networks” the Communist Party can’t touch. That initiative, involving everything from 5G networks to cloud services to undersea cables, is already impacting corporate deal-making and geopolitics, with both countries and companies pressured to pick sides.
While the actions are intensifying in the middle of an election campaign, the question of what U.S. data can be accessed by Chinese companies -- if any -- cuts across partisan lines. Trump and his rival, Democrat Joe Biden, are both trying to appeal to voters frustrated by the Covid-19 pandemic as the “tough on China” candidate.
The markets are waking up to the long-term risk. A report that China is planning to overhaul its domestic computer chip industry helped trigger a stock rout last week that shaved about $100 billion off a key semiconductor index. Under discussion now in the U.S. is whether to restrict Chinese access to data on everything from smart refrigerators to exercise monitors, moves that business leaders from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen worry could lead to a decoupling of the entire global economy.