Tech decoupling will not keep US first

The Consumer Electronics Show, which has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies worldwide for decades, used to be a magnet for Chinese high-tech giants seeking to build their brands and forge global partnerships－so much so that many have joked that CES stands for the China Electronics Show.

But with Washington having launched a technology cold war against China, the presence of Chinese high-tech companies at this year's show in Las Vegas is notably reduced.

In 2018, before Washington started turning the screws on China's tech companies, they accounted for one-third of those participating in the world's biggest consumer technology trade fair. Last year, the number of Chinese companies accounted for more than one in four. But during this year's event, running from Tuesday to Friday, only a little over 1,000 of the 4,500 companies present at the show come from China, with many of the big names such as Alibaba and Tencent absent.

Many Chinese companies have stayed away because they are on Washington's trade restricting "entity list" with the justification being they are contributing to what US officials claim are violations of human rights in China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region or because they have been identified by the US as a national security risk. Others reportedly decided not to attend because the US adopted a stricter visa policy toward them.

Fears that the US is seeking to strangle China's high-tech progress would appear to have been corroborated by a Eurasia Group report released on Monday on top risks for 2020 that bemoans a decoupling in the technology sphere between China and the US, which it dubbed as "the single most impactful development for globalization since the collapse of the Soviet Union".

But erecting barriers to technology will not derail Chinese tech companies from their fast track of growth, it will only propel them to invest more in research and development so as to remain competitive on the innovation front.

China is no longer just an assembler of electronic devices. It now plays an indispensable role in the international technology supply chain. The increasing interdependence between high-tech companies as a result of globalization means a technology cold war between China and the US will not only be detrimental to the research and development collaborations that technological progress now relies on, it will also hurt the US economy. For example, in terms of US companies losing royalties and intellectual property-related revenue as well as business in the huge Chinese market.

Rather than decoupling, nations should work together to reshape the future of global technology that serves the good of all.