China's technology companies as the target of the US strike in the context of anti-Russian sanctions1
The article is devoted to the analysis of the status and prospects of Chinese-American relations in the field of technological exchange against the background of deepening divergences between the two countries, and in the light of anti-Russian sanctions and the “Ukrainian crisis”. This topic is gaining particular relevance due to the transformation of sanctions’ policy into the principal tool of the US pressure on its geopolitical opponents, as well as Beijing's growing concern about the risk of tightening US sanctions against Chinese high-tech companies. The author believes that the development of events in Ukraine has not led to an apparent change in the foreign policy of the PRC, but the issue of the probability degree and directions of a new Western attack on China, similar to the one Russia is experiencing today, cannot but concern Beijing. The feeling that “China is next” permeates the mood in Chinese society. The article emphasizes that the measures taken against the most advanced sector of the Chinese economy, especially significant for ensuring the political and economic security of the PRC - the IT sphere, are the most sensitive for China. Using the case of Huawei, the author shows how, through sanctions, the US undermines global growth and advance of Chinese high-tech giants. To begin with, the United States has already restricted Chinese companies' access to the American market and technologies. The article also characterizes features and chronology of the stages of the “sanctions war” against China, emphasizing the idea that the change of the US administration not only hasn’t led to the lifting of anti-Chinese sanctions, but vividly demonstrates now a serious potential for their tightening. The article states that political motives (including human rights’ violation in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the PRC), which will certainly be used by Washington further on, are an almost universal pretext for exerting pressure on the leading technological giants of the Chinese economy. Finally, the author notes that since 2018, the United States has purposefully targeted companies of Chinese technology sector with its sanctions pressure, seeking to oust Chinese competitors from the global IT market. He comes to the conclusion that in the event of Beijing's declarative or actual violation of the restrictions imposed by the collective West on the Russian economy, there will be China's technology companies to become the target of Washington’s new highly probable sanctions attack.