China: U.S. Seeking to ‘Colonize Global Business’

Date: 24 May 2019 - 22:00

News ID: ۶۶۳۳۲

BEIJING (Dispatches) — Chinese state media on Friday accused the U.S. of seeking to "colonize global business” with moves against Huawei and other Chinese technology companies.
At a daily briefing Friday, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang accused American politicians he didn’t name of "fabricating various lies based on subjective presumptions and trying to mislead the American people.”
The China Daily, an English-language newspaper, said U.S. expressions of concerns about Chinese surveillance equipment maker Hikvision were for the self-serving aim of claiming the "moral high ground” to promote Washington’s political agenda.
"In this way, it is hoping to achieve the colonization of the global business world,” the newspaper said.
The New York Times reported the U.S. Commerce Department might put Hikvision on its "entity list,” restricting its business with U.S. companies for its alleged role in facilitating surveillance in Xinjiang.
In South Korea, officials said they were discussing security issues related to its 5G, or fifth generation, cellphone networks with the U.S.
Washington considers Huawei, the world’s leading supplier of telecom gear and No. 2 smartphone maker, a security threat.
The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee unveiled a draft bill on Thursday that targets China on several fronts, from stemming the erosion of the American military advantage against Beijing to countering the growing Chinese influence around the world.
The $750-billion proposal would also authorize the U.S. military to buy more Lockheed Martin F-35 jets and fully fund a program to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal.
The committee acknowledged that "our margin of military supremacy has eroded and is undermined by new threats from strategic competitors like China and Russia."
The panel addressed what Congress sees as the threat from China, including stricter reporting of Beijing's "Belt and Road" international lending program.
The bill would require the creation of a list of Chinese institutions and companies with any links to its military, to be used for screening visa applications for students and researchers.
"A lot of universities just don't have the information about whether research they're conducting is under threat," a senior committee aide told reporters.
Many U.S. universities work on research with military applications and U.S. officials worry about intellectual property theft coming from China.
China and the United States are increasingly becoming geopolitical adversaries as well as economic rivals.