The annual CES (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show) is set to take place in Las Vegas, the US. It is reported that around 4,000 exhibitors from around the world have registered to attend, with more than 30 percent of them coming from China. However, latest media reports indicated that many employees from Chinese technology companies were denied US visas despite holding invitations to attend. Some commentators have called this visa rejection "unprecedented." So far, there has been no official response from the US government on this matter. We urge the US Department of State to verify relevant reports as soon as possible, reduce visa and entry policy obstacles, facilitate normal people-to-people business and industrial exchanges between the two countries, and implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state.
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For this reason, the large-scale visa denials faced by Chinese companies have left even the American side, including the event organizers, stunned. Chris Pereira, the founder of iMpact, a New York-based consultancy, said exhibitions like CES were "wonderful opportunities for business exchanges between companies from China, the US, and the rest of the world, but now it is frustrating to see even events like this being impacted."
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In the past, some Chinese companies were unable to attend CES mainly due to the impact of unilateral sanctions imposed by the US, but this is the first time that large-scale visa issues have been the obstacle. Even people in the US immediately suspected that this was politically motivated, rather than being due to any "technical reasons."
China might start their own competing exhibition if CES doesn't want Chinese brands to exhibit.
Part of the continuing ramp up of the technology blockade and embargo on China. Done under Biden lest anyone doubt this is the chosen path of the entire US.
I once again re-iterate, the US is serious about decoupling from Chinese technology, from preventing the sales, spread, development of finished products and ensure that domain remains exclusively that of the anglo western imperialist order. They would like to entirely decouple from China to throw up a big wall on them and crush them with sanctions and propaganda but they can't in the near or medium-term so this is the solution. To suppress their development and movement up the value chain, to force them to remain a low value, low tech producer and grievously injure their economy in the process. All part of the plan for the new American century. All part of Pax Americana.
By doing it gradually and giving out money generously to companies they hope to force them to decouple, to deny China the latest technology such as chip-making and other things that they think give them a leg up but also to deny them a market in the west or ideally anywhere else to crush their development and ensure western profits and NSA backdoor spying via western technology can continue to enable their hegemony.
It is for this reason I'm not entirely ready to dismiss Trump's claimed planned of 100% tariffs on anyone who drops the dollar. While I doubt it would be implemented in quite that way, the west beyond Trump I believe has designs on the tall fenced in yard model. That is they want to create camps, they intend on pushing as many countries as possible into their camp using technology, dollar, media/cultural hegemony, and yes of course things like color revolutions, insurgencies, etc while punishing and making life in the other camp miserable and essentially bifurcating the world with the hope most of the world ends up within their fence for their exploitation and with time this allows them to crush the development of China, to reduce living conditions and to foment overthrow or fragmentation of China and Russia.
Decoupling isn't just about ensuring hegemony through markets. It's also about national security ie making sure US war equipments don't have anything from China when the US starts a hot war. Of course in such a scenario a thing with Chinese components will become quite difficult to maintain due to supply chain disruption or sabotage. And there's also the threat model of supply chain attacks like the terrorist attack using pagers in Lebanon.
It’s also about national security ie making sure US war equipments don’t have anything from China when the US starts a hot war.
I disagree. The US has no serious real fears of Chinese equipment. And if they did they wouldn't need to ban consumers from buying it, just the government itself. Already sensitive applications of technology require a security review and certain kinds of manufacturers.
Of course in such a scenario a thing with Chinese components will become quite difficult to maintain due to supply chain disruption or sabotage.
No reason for the US to care if Johnny's Huawei smartphone can't get parts. It's about suppression.
The only national security concern is the concern that Chinese products don't have western back-doors which impedes their ability to spy, insert malware, and do all that stuff the eyes nations love doing even to each other but especially those outside the group. That's a threat to their dragnet intelligence collection and cyber-warfare capabilities but not because the Chinese stuff has any issue.
And there’s also the threat model of supply chain attacks like the terrorist attack using pagers in Lebanon.
They don't really believe this. Sure a couple of racist congress-creatures might but national security organs know China isn't going to put bombs in their civilian home internet routers or their civilian drones or their civilian smartphones. Give me a break.
The US has long had procedures for procurement of secure devices for sensitive applications. The sanctions, the selling embargos, the fear-mongering, all of it has nothing to do with government use and military or national security functions.
I mean why reach for this? Why buy their weak rationale when people like Sullivan and others are on record saying they want to keep China technologically 10 years behind the US? That the US has to be 10 years ahead of them. When you know that and their stated needs and motives it's clear what's going on and it has nothing to do with Chinese products being back-doors.
I don't doubt for a moment that the US wants to do all this and more. But as historical materialists, the question is whether it can.
They realise that every time they have denied China access to something, China has just made a better version?
They already have CEF anyway I suppose, which is already the biggest Chinese electronics tradeshow. They could easily just start inviting more foreign companies (including USian companies that are willing to work within Chinese structures).
This visa things has been going on for a few years now.
Used to familiar with a biotech company in china, they were working with an american firm to do testing and needed to send about 30 employees over. Despite having invitations from the american company and all documents in order, around half of them got rejected with no stated reason. (Apparently the policy is that they do not need to give a reason to reject visa) Almost like they needed to hit a certain rejection quota.
I've visited a handful of countries myself. US, by a long shot, is the hardest to get a visa from. Even with a visa, they had the most strict customs to pass through, treating everyone as a possible threat/illegal migration risk. And I've been led to a separate room and been told to wait more than once.(I'm probably on a list or something) Love the place but I'm not planning on visiting any time soon.
