The US and China have seen rising tensions between the two countries since the beginning of the year. While the two slowly became major trade partners over the last 20 years, they’re beginning to feel the fault lines growing.
The US has accused China of widespread corporate espionage, as well as cyberattacks on US vaccine development. As such, Washington has ordered the Chinese consulate in Houston to close.
By way of retaliation, Beijing has ordered the US consulate in Chengdu closed. This represents a series of diplomatic snubs that could escalate into serious tensions between the two countries.
Since the early 1990s, the world has known (relative) peace due to the collapse of the USSR. Some international observers, however, fear that China and the US engaging in brinksmanship could bring about a second Cold War.
American companies have accused Chinese interests of corporate espionage on multiple occasions. Apple, who make smartphones like the iPhone 11 Pro Max, have accused Huawei of stealing their designs for new smartphones. The team at Huawei can’t sell or market their phones directly in the US. Moreover, the US successfully convinced the European Union to not allow Huawei technology to be used in their 5G infrastructure.
The Chinese government partly owns Huawei.
In the US, there is widespread mistrust of Chinese technology. Many tech experts fear that Chinese-owned companies feed data collected by their devices back to the Chinese government. This is the case with Tik Tok, an app popular with children that hosts short videos. ByteDance, a Chinese company, owns TikTok, and some US politicians want to see it banned in the country. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has floated this idea more than once.
The US has also condemned human rights violations in cities like Hong Kong. Recently, an anti-sedition law in Hong Kong has made international community members worry over the Chinese government’s increasing authoritarian tendencies. Moreover, China faces accusations that Uighur Muslims were being allowed to die in hospitals in order to give organ transplant to ethnically Chinese people.
These human rights violations have led to many US consumers severing ties with American businesses that seem sympathetic to Beijing. Blizzard Entertainment faced harsh criticism from the US when they banned a popular player after he signaled his support for the Hong Kong protesters. Blizzard is part of Tencent, a major Chinese internet company.
