foreignpolicy--2020-02-24--Foreign Interference Starts at Home

Foreign Interference Starts at Home

Until recently , if foreign-policy think tanks in Europe and the United States worked on democracy at all , they focused on promoting and supporting democracy elsewhere in the world .
But in the last few years—and in particular since Britain ’ s decision to leave the European Union and Donald Trump ’ s election as U.S. president in 2016—a remarkable shift has occurred .
There is an active proliferation underway of projects that seek to “ defend , ” “ protect , ” or “ secure ” democracy within Europe and the United States , which are increasingly seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreign-policy conference seems to have a session on the crisis of liberal democracy , usually near the outset .
Despite the foreign-policy establishment ’ s newfound interest in democracy within the West , the focus of nearly all of these projects is on “ foreign interference ” in Western democracies and on the role of digital technology—particularly social media—in undermining them .
Many of the new democracy projects are about the nexus of “ foreign interference ” and technology—that is , the use of digital tools by authoritarian states such as China and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politics of democratic societies , ” as one Washington-based think tank puts it ( in a description of a project funded by , of all people , James Murdoch , who was at the center of a phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom ) .
In short , the foreign-policy establishment is focused almost exclusively on the external aspect of the current crisis of liberal democracy in the West .
To some extent this is understandable—after all , foreign policy is what the foreign-policy establishment does .
But this focus tends to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a flawed and frustrating debate among foreign-policy think tanks about the crisis , which suggests that our democracies were in great shape before the Chinese and Russians and social media ruined everything .
At its worst , its obsessive focus on foreign influence recalls Richard Hofstadter ’ s description of the “ paranoid style in American politics.
” It isn ’ t so much that these projects are wrong in their claims about what the Chinese and Russians are doing and why—though democracy hawks are often a bit forgetful , or in denial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ West itself developed many of the techniques that China and Russia are now adapting and updating , albeit for different purposes .
( For example , they talk a lot about the offensive use of cyberwarfare by China and Russia , but never mention Stuxnet , the malware that was used to disrupt Iran ’ s nuclear program in 2010 . )
What China and Russia are currently doing can be thought of as “ authoritarianism promotion , ” a response to Western “ democracy promotion.
” The real problem , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to connect the dots .
They ignore the complex ways in which the external and internal aspects of the crisis are related and in particular the way in which the policies that Europe and the United States have pursued in the past few decades have made our societies so vulnerable .
Foreign-policy analysts talk endlessly about how China and Russia seek to exploit and exacerbate divisions in Western societies , but say almost nothing about where these divisions come from .
Instead of engaging in difficult questions about the causes of the crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem of “ populism ” supported by authoritarian states .
In particular , they have nothing to say about the way that , in the context of what Dani Rodrik has called “ hyper-globalization , ” democracy has been increasingly hollowed out as decision-making has shifted from elected politicians to technocratic supranational institutions—a trend that was driven by not by “ populists ” but by centrists .
The European Union—which democracy hawks reflexively defend because they see it as one of the key elements of the “ liberal international order ” that authoritarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to destroy—is particularly problematic in this respect .
Within the EU , deep integration has gone further than elsewhere in the world , and with it the development of technocratic governance .
This is why many people want to “ take back control.
” Supporters of globalization often point to the way it has reduced global inequality—though in doing so it also empowered the peer competitor to the United States about whom democracy hawks are now most worried : China .
But at the same time , the liberal economic policies that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increased inequality within Europe and the United States .
Many analysts argue that this increase in inequality , and the rise in economic insecurity and precariousness that has accompanied it , has led to declining satisfaction with democracy and created the conditions for the rise of so-called populism .
What is described as “ foreign interference ” —which includes everything from the funding of “ populist ” parties to television channels such as RT to bots and social-media posts—is to a large extent a function of this deregulated , hyperglobalized world in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that “ foreign interference ” is what globalization is all about .
Yet most of the foreign-policy analysts who criticize “ foreign interference ” have almost nothing to say about globalization and how it should be reformed .
In fact , most of them uncritically defend hyperglobalization—and dismiss any attempts to dial it back it as “ protectionism , ” “ illiberalism , ” or “ nationalism.
” Of course , a distinction can be made between legitimate and illegitimate “ foreign interference.
” But few foreign-policy analysts have made an attempt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consistently .
Foreign-policy analysts also talk a lot about the way that China and Russia seek to create economic dependence through investments around the world .
For example , in a paper on how China and Russia seek to “ undermine democratic norms , weaken European institutions and cohesion , and capitalize on fissures in the transatlantic relationship , ” Jessica Brandt and Torrey Taussig write that Chinese and Russian investments “ provide European countries with much-needed financing—particularly in Greece during the sovereign debt crisis.
” But they stop short of examining how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in effect forced deficit countries like Greece to seek alternative sources of investment from outside the European Union .
As a result of this failure to make connections with other policy areas such as economic policy , much of this increasingly hawkish content emanating from foreign-policy think tanks in Europe and the United States feels inadequate—even if , like me , you are yourself hawkish about China and Russia .
Although democracy hawks claim they want to “ defend , ” “ protect , ” or “ secure ” democracy , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the task .
In particular , they do not seem interested in thinking about why our societies are so vulnerable to Chinese and Russian “ interference.
” Rather than figuring out how to make our democracies stronger , it is as if they just want to use “ democracy ” as a tool in the strategic competition with China and Russia .
Projects that focus on “ foreign interference ” often end up calling for more Western “ resilience.
” In particular , they focus obsessively on stopping “ disinformation ” —as if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a problem of deliberate political lying or false information rather than a clash of ideas and interests .
But in a sense , “ resilience ” —which suggests we need to become tougher without ourselves changing—is actually the opposite of what is needed to solve the crisis .
The real challenge is to think about how our democracies can be reformed and in particular how democracy can be deepened so that it becomes more responsive to the needs of citizens—particularly those who have been disadvantaged or ignored in the last few decades .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a different approach than most other foreign-policy think tanks .
In our project on the future of democracy in Europe , we started from the assumption that the crisis is driven primarily by internal factors—though , of course , external actors may seek to exploit the situation .
In a forthcoming research paper , we examine these drivers and explore how the crisis might ultimately be solved .
In particular , we explore the emergence of new “ digital parties ” and experiments in direct and deliberative democracy that are taking place around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ democracy and make it more responsive .
We do not offer any simple solutions—we show that there is little agreement about the causes of the crisis and the role of technology in it , let alone about how it can be solved .
In particular , there is actually little evidence for much of what we think we know about the effect that social media is having on our democracies—and much of what is written about it reflects centrist assumptions about how democracy should function ( e.g .
the idea that “ polarization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But while it may be outside our comfort zone as foreign-policy analysts , we have to engage with these difficult questions .
In other words , if we are serious about “ defending , ” “ protecting , ” or “ securing ” democracy , we need to go beyond foreign policy .

Until recently, if foreign-policy think tanks in Europe and the United States worked on democracy at all, they focused on promoting and supporting democracy elsewhere in the world. But in the last few years—and in particular since Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president in 2016—a remarkable shift has occurred. There is an active proliferation underway of projects that seek to “defend,” “protect,” or “secure” democracy within Europe and the United States, which are increasingly seen as vulnerable. These days, every foreign-policy conference seems to have a session on the crisis of liberal democracy, usually near the outset.
Until recently, if foreign-policy think tanks in Europe and the United States worked on democracy at all, they focused on promoting and supporting democracy elsewhere in the world. But in the last few years—and in particular since Britain’s decision to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president in 2016—a remarkable shift has occurred. There is an active proliferation underway of projects that seek to “defend,” “protect,” or “secure” democracy within Europe and the United States, which are increasingly seen as vulnerable. These days, every foreign-policy conference seems to have a session on the crisis of liberal democracy, usually near the outset.
Despite the foreign-policy establishment’s newfound interest in democracy within the West, the focus of nearly all of these projects is on “foreign interference” in Western democracies and on the role of digital technology—particularly social media—in undermining them. Many of the new democracy projects are about the nexus of “foreign interference” and technology—that is, the use of digital tools by authoritarian states such as China and Russia to “polarize and pervert the politics of democratic societies,” as one Washington-based think tank puts it (in a description of a project funded by, of all people, James Murdoch, who was at the center of a phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom).
In short, the foreign-policy establishment is focused almost exclusively on the external aspect of the current crisis of liberal democracy in the West. To some extent this is understandable—after all, foreign policy is what the foreign-policy establishment does. But this focus tends to externalize an internal problem and has produced a flawed and frustrating debate among foreign-policy think tanks about the crisis, which suggests that our democracies were in great shape before the Chinese and Russians and social media ruined everything. At its worst, its obsessive focus on foreign influence recalls Richard Hofstadter’s description of the “paranoid style in American politics.”
It isn’t so much that these projects are wrong in their claims about what the Chinese and Russians are doing and why—though democracy hawks are often a bit forgetful, or in denial, about the way in which the West itself developed many of the techniques that China and Russia are now adapting and updating, albeit for different purposes. (For example, they talk a lot about the offensive use of cyberwarfare by China and Russia, but never mention Stuxnet, the malware that was used to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program in 2010.) What China and Russia are currently doing can be thought of as “authoritarianism promotion,” a response to Western “democracy promotion.”
The real problem, however, is the way that democracy hawks fail to connect the dots. They ignore the complex ways in which the external and internal aspects of the crisis are related and in particular the way in which the policies that Europe and the United States have pursued in the past few decades have made our societies so vulnerable. Foreign-policy analysts talk endlessly about how China and Russia seek to exploit and exacerbate divisions in Western societies, but say almost nothing about where these divisions come from. Instead of engaging in difficult questions about the causes of the crisis, democracy hawks reduce it to a problem of “populism” supported by authoritarian states.
In particular, they have nothing to say about the way that, in the context of what Dani Rodrik has called “hyper-globalization,” democracy has been increasingly hollowed out as decision-making has shifted from elected politicians to technocratic supranational institutions—a trend that was driven by not by “populists” but by centrists. The European Union—which democracy hawks reflexively defend because they see it as one of the key elements of the “liberal international order” that authoritarian states like China and Russia are trying to destroy—is particularly problematic in this respect. Within the EU, deep integration has gone further than elsewhere in the world, and with it the development of technocratic governance. This is why many people want to “take back control.”
Supporters of globalization often point to the way it has reduced global inequality—though in doing so it also empowered the peer competitor to the United States about whom democracy hawks are now most worried: China. But at the same time, the liberal economic policies that have been followed since the 1980s have vastly increased inequality within Europe and the United States. Many analysts argue that this increase in inequality, and the rise in economic insecurity and precariousness that has accompanied it, has led to declining satisfaction with democracy and created the conditions for the rise of so-called populism.
What is described as “foreign interference”—which includes everything from the funding of “populist” parties to television channels such as RT to bots and social-media posts—is to a large extent a function of this deregulated, hyperglobalized world in which ideas—and money—flow freely. One might even say that “foreign interference” is what globalization is all about. Yet most of the foreign-policy analysts who criticize “foreign interference” have almost nothing to say about globalization and how it should be reformed. In fact, most of them uncritically defend hyperglobalization—and dismiss any attempts to dial it back it as “protectionism,” “illiberalism,” or “nationalism.” Of course, a distinction can be made between legitimate and illegitimate “foreign interference.” But few foreign-policy analysts have made an attempt to define this difference and apply it consistently.
Foreign-policy analysts also talk a lot about the way that China and Russia seek to create economic dependence through investments around the world. For example, in a paper on how China and Russia seek to “undermine democratic norms, weaken European institutions and cohesion, and capitalize on fissures in the transatlantic relationship,” Jessica Brandt and Torrey Taussig write that Chinese and Russian investments “provide European countries with much-needed financing—particularly in Greece during the sovereign debt crisis.” But they stop short of examining how disastrous eurozone policy, driven by Germany, in effect forced deficit countries like Greece to seek alternative sources of investment from outside the European Union.
As a result of this failure to make connections with other policy areas such as economic policy, much of this increasingly hawkish content emanating from foreign-policy think tanks in Europe and the United States feels inadequate—even if, like me, you are yourself hawkish about China and Russia. Although democracy hawks claim they want to “defend,” “protect,” or “secure” democracy, they do not actually seem very serious about the task. In particular, they do not seem interested in thinking about why our societies are so vulnerable to Chinese and Russian “interference.” Rather than figuring out how to make our democracies stronger, it is as if they just want to use “democracy” as a tool in the strategic competition with China and Russia.
Projects that focus on “foreign interference” often end up calling for more Western “resilience.” In particular, they focus obsessively on stopping “disinformation”—as if the current crisis could be reduced to a problem of deliberate political lying or false information rather than a clash of ideas and interests. But in a sense, “resilience”—which suggests we need to become tougher without ourselves changing—is actually the opposite of what is needed to solve the crisis. The real challenge is to think about how our democracies can be reformed and in particular how democracy can be deepened so that it becomes more responsive to the needs of citizens—particularly those who have been disadvantaged or ignored in the last few decades.
This is why Chatham House has taken a different approach than most other foreign-policy think tanks. In our project on the future of democracy in Europe, we started from the assumption that the crisis is driven primarily by internal factors—though, of course, external actors may seek to exploit the situation. In a forthcoming research paper, we examine these drivers and explore how the crisis might ultimately be solved. In particular, we explore the emergence of new “digital parties” and experiments in direct and deliberative democracy that are taking place around Europe and have the potential to deepen democracy and make it more responsive.
We do not offer any simple solutions—we show that there is little agreement about the causes of the crisis and the role of technology in it, let alone about how it can be solved. In particular, there is actually little evidence for much of what we think we know about the effect that social media is having on our democracies—and much of what is written about it reflects centrist assumptions about how democracy should function (e.g. the idea that “polarization” is a bad thing). But while it may be outside our comfort zone as foreign-policy analysts, we have to engage with these difficult questions. In other words, if we are serious about “defending,” “protecting,” or “securing” democracy, we need to go beyond foreign policy.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-24--How Do You Keep China’s Economy Running with 750 Million in Quarantine?

BEIJING—Returning to China in mid-February , I had seemingly stepped into a parallel universe .
Much of Beijing looked , and even smelled , like the familiar metropolis in which I ’ ve lived for decades .
Except for one thing .
Where were all the people ?
The Chinese capital has more than 20 million residents .
But the coronavirus that burst out of Hubei province—infecting some 79,000 worldwide and killing more than 2,600 ( mostly in China ) —had almost emptied Beijing ’ s vast boulevards .
I felt as if I ’ d stumbled onto the set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city confirmed only four coronavirus deaths , everyone was jittery about infection . )
In my silent apartment building , 36 pages of warnings , notices , instructions , and lists of fever clinics were taped neatly to the lobby walls , with 11 more in the elevator .
They told returnees to Beijing to scan a QR code ( leading to a nosy questionnaire ) and isolate themselves at home for 14 days .
I was asked some obvious questions : “ Have you been to Hubei ?
” where the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epicenter of the outbreak .
( I haven ’ t been for years . )
Plus less obvious questions , like my ethnic background and “ Are you a member of the Communist Party ?
” I thought : Does being a member of the Chinese Communist Party have anything to do with whether one ’ s infected or not ?
Actually , the party has something to do with everything in China , especially under Xi Jinping—and suddenly , for Xi , that has become a double-edged sword .
As president , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Xi has consolidated his authority , centralized decision-making , abolished presidential term limits , and promoted his loyalists .
People expect Xi , China ’ s “ chairman of everything , ” to fix everything when it goes wrong .
And this is an especially critical test for a Communist leader who has steadily gathered power since becoming party head in November 2012 , turning himself into the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong , in the eyes of some observers .
Now Xi and his party apparatus are scrambling to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Xi must reduce ( and hopefully eliminate ) new coronavirus deaths and infections swiftly while simultaneously reviving China ’ s shellshocked economy .
Problem is , people can ’ t get back to business if they ’ re hunkering in a bunker .
Yet kick-starting economic activity is key if Beijing hopes to prevent this viral outbreak from becoming the “ black swan ” that Xi has always worried about , sabotaging China ’ s economy and the world ’ s along with it .
Meanwhile public trust in the system has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will determine whether the damage is irreparable or not .
“ Some days I don ’ t even make enough money to cover fuel costs and the daily 200 RMB [ renminbi ] I give to the taxi company , ” complained Beijing taxi driver Yang Guoning .
He said he ’ d asked the company for a daily subsidy but was told to “ wait for the government policy.
” What can he do in the meantime ?
“ All I can do is show up for work and take all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ precautions ?
His voice dripped with sarcasm .
“ Wear a face mask .
Disinfect my taxi .
Roll down the windows , and get plenty of fresh air—after all , that ’ s what the government says I must do .
What else is there ?
” He pressed the “ down ” button to further lower his taxi windows with an exaggerated gesture—and a look of disgust .
Most tragic are recurring reports—most often from Hubei but repeated in some other communities—of an overstressed public health system .
Patient care has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced quarantines , and shortages of beds , equipment , and diagnostic testing kits .
Ailing Chinese were manhandled into strict isolation and then left untended .
People suffering from unidentified or non-coronavirus complaints—from HIV/AIDS complications to cancer to injuries from exploding fireworks—were thrown out of hospitals to make way for high-priority novel coronavirus cases .
Such descriptions evoke wartime scenes from a combat triage tent—and that may be no accident .
Girding to fight the “ demon virus , ” Xi himself has likened the anti-epidemic battle to a “ people ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happens if many people no longer believe him and begin to seek private survival strategies .
For some , that might mean long delays before resuming work ; if pervasive and prolonged , this could deal a body blow to China ’ s already slowing economy .
Worse , others may try to evade their quarantines .
The potential for even greater public health catastrophes is sobering .
Beijing ’ s default toolkit for any tough task—be it social , digital , economic—is full of quarantines .
The Great Firewall of China and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from ideas such as free speech and universal suffrage , which suffuse the free internet .
To counter ethnic unrest in the majority-Muslim Xinjiang region , Beijing officials threw a security cordon around it , restricted internet usage inside the zone , and forcibly interned those perceived to be potential troublemakers in camps .
When the government decided to experiment with free market principles in the post-Mao era , it built special economic zones to ringfence the quasi-capitalist enclaves from everywhere else .
The good news for Xi and the party at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases and deaths nationwide ( the vast majority in Hubei ) .
The bad news , however , is that Hubei ’ s horrors have tarnished the trust many Chinese had in their officials ’ ability to safeguard citizens ’ lives and livelihoods .
Anger is rising in online memes .
When the contagion first erupted , Xi was curiously absent from public view .
He normally dominates headlines , but it was premier Li Keqiang who traveled to Wuhan on the requisite morale-lifting mission .
Subsequently Xi materialized on a Beijing street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hands wouldn ’ t be a great idea right now .
When the official photo of Xi in a face mask circulated on social media , many Chinese jumped in on the social media platform WeChat with the pointed question : “ When are you going to Wuhan ?
” Despite China ’ s vigilant censorship of most negative online content , that sarcastic retort was not scrubbed .
Then there was debate about Beijing ’ s requirement that citizens wear face masks in public .
Virtually everyone in Beijing is complying .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Singaporean Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing ’ s apparent criticism of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam for wearing a mask while holding a press conference .
In a tape leaked to media , he said had Singaporean politicians done the same , panic would have ensued and the public health system “ would have broken down ” due to face mask shortages .
“ You must have heard about what the Singapore minister said , ” a Chinese friend said to me as we were catching up after returning to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WeChat .
Basically the minister was pointing out how incompetent Chinese officials are.
” ( For a while , shortages of face masks and other protective gear afflicted mainland China , and in Hong Kong , criminals broke into parked cars to steal face masks and even conducted an armed heist of toilet paper . )
It comes as little surprise that more and more Chinese seem skeptical about official Chinese epidemic statistics .
Foreign critics have been raising eyebrows over Beijing ’ s funny numbers for decades .
Worse , recently Beijing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ determine “ confirmed ” infections ; at one point , case definitions flipped and then flopped back , all in about a week .
But the regime ’ s most dangerous moment came in early February , as anger erupted over the death of Li Wenliang .
The 34-year-old ophthalmologist had tried to warn colleagues about an infectious new pathogen in Wuhan .
Police rounded up Li and seven others , reprimanding them for rumormongering and “ illegal behavior.
” “ This is not rule of law , ” the former U.K. diplomat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Financial Times commentary .
“ The room for abuse and fear is obvious .
… All of that breeds distrust and cynicism , both with the people and among officials.
” Li himself wound up infected by the virus against which he ’ d battled .
After he died , the Weibo hashtag “ Wuhan government owes Dr. Li Wenliang an apology ” was viewed 180 million times before being scrubbed by censors .
Even some educated Chinese acquaintances seemed to believe outlandish conspiracy theories and ghoulish rumors about the epidemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ question : How much—and how many—would China ’ s mandarins sacrifice to save their own hides ?
Before my return to Beijing from a monthlong sojourn in Southeast Asia , Xi denounced grassroots “ formalism and bureaucratism.
” The regime sacked Hubei cadres and party members , 337 in Huanggang city alone .
Outside the official narrative , dark tales emerged from Hubei of appalling government blunders .
Apparatchiks in Hubei were said to have downplayed the public health threat at first so they could preside over two party meetings and a Lunar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 40,000 families .
While Xi remains the commander in chief , the numerous loopholes that allowed the coronavirus to emerge suggest China ’ s Big Brother regime is less omnipotent and more disjointed than one might think .
His regime now presides over a system in which sycophants rule .
The dangers of doing something risky outweigh the risks of doing nothing .
For many apparatchiks , the default position is bureaucratic paralysis .
As the China expert and former U.S. diplomat David Cowhig put it , Chinese officialdom is a coalition of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brothers ’ ” who can resort to many tools , such as propaganda and local power networks , to protect their interests .
Xi can give commands , but he can not ensure that they ’ ll remain clear and not in contradiction with each other as they get passed ( or not passed ) down the line .
For example , precisely how the regime will help cash-strapped businesses and citizens through the crisis still remains unclear to many of them , even though officials and corporations have scrambled to trumpet upcoming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , loans , rent holidays , and the like .
“ If Mr. Xi ’ s world is to end , it will not be with a bang or a whimper , ” the former British diplomat Parton wrote .
“ But it might be with a broken economy.
” The government ’ s own quarantine protocols are another reason China , the “ factory to the world , ” has yet to reopen for business .
Beijing already extended the Lunar New Year holidays due to the epidemic , so many workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On Feb. 15 , Beijing announced its 14-day self-quarantine for returnees—meaning all who came back after Feb. 15 would still be sequestered at home now .
In contrast with the more heavy-handed lockdowns in Hubei , Beijing ’ s varieties of quarantine seemed a tad quixotic .
I came back to Beijing before the quarantine announcement , so I wasn ’ t required to isolate myself for two weeks .
( Anyway I ’ m a U.S. citizen , and eventually someone said foreign citizens were exempt . )
Had I been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 15 , I ’ d be sequestering myself for 14 days .
An article raising many quarantine questions was published in a local magazine , the Beijinger , and its headline said it all : “ To Quarantine or Not to Quarantine : Confusion Reigns for Foreigners Returning From Overseas.
” Many Chinese passport holders returning to Beijing submitted themselves to much more frustrating routines .
Some compounds—especially those that had lacked automated entry pass systems before—are now outfitted with color-coded entry cards .
Access is once again ruled by neighborhood committees , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
( Back in the ’ 80s , the Beijing-based foreign press corps saw them as eagle-eyed busybodies who spied and snitched on their neighbors . )
Enjoying a new lease on life , these committees are functioning sort of as quarantine cops .
They ’ re responsible for managing the brand-new entry-exit systems that record residents ’ comings and goings and degree of isolation compliance .
“ If you ’ re supposed to quarantine yourself but don ’ t do it , you ’ re allowed to exit your compound—but then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said Linda , a 20-something friend of mine who returned to Beijing the same day I did ; she requested that her real name not be used .
“ Some people have been barred from entering their own apartments , though that ’ s supposed to be illegal.
” Her neighborhood committee calls her at least a couple times a day , asking after her health and whereabouts .
The situation seems rife for abuse by the “ little ‘ Big Brothers.
’ ” Linda works in the beauty and cosmetics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her colleagues have returned to work .
“ They ’ re either in quarantine in Beijing or under lockdown in the provinces.
” The shop where she works eats up more than 100,000 RMB ( $ 14,285 ) in monthly rent , yet the glass-walled space sits silent and empty .
With three locations in Beijing , her boss will likely shut down one of the three , she said with startling calm , “ maybe by the end of February or early March.
” When might the virus scare subside ?
Shrugging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
My brother works with tour groups going to South Korea , and he plans to reopen March 1.
” The coronavirus outbreak obviously is hurting China ’ s economy , but it ’ s hard to know precisely how much worse it ’ s hurting compared with the SARS contagion that lasted from November 2002 to July 2003 .
SARS , a cousin of the coronavirus , infected 8,000 people , killed nearly 800 , and caused $ 30 billion to $ 100 billion in disrupted trade and travel .
It cut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year by about 1 percent .
But in 2003 , China ’ s economy bounced back to double-digit growth in the third quarter .
SARS had a higher mortality rate—9.6 percent—than this coronavirus .
But for other reasons , the current outbreak could still live up to its label as Xi ’ s “ demon virus.
” For one thing , China ’ s economy today is much bigger , and more globally intertwined , than 17 years ago .
It ’ s at the heart of huge global supply chains , capable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wide , as Apple has discovered .
Now China represents an estimated 16.9 percent of global output , compared with just 4.3 percent in 2003 .
The International Air Transport Association has already warned that the coronavirus contagion could cost the worldwide airlines industry nearly $ 30 billion in lost revenue .
Little wonder that Chinese authorities are trapped in a tug of war pitting their hunker-down-and-quarantine instincts against the back-to-business imperative .
Officialdom prefers to call the two-pronged effort to contain the coronavirus while at the same time reviving the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” That ’ s a gargantuan task and markets got spooked by it on Monday around the world .
The two-pronged nature of Beijing ’ s challenge makes it extremely risky for the regime .
Heightened distrust of the regime wouldn ’ t be so incendiary if it were due , say , just to tougher restrictions on academic freedom or a clampdown on Protestant house churches .
However , eroding grassroots confidence could become a game-changer if paired with “ a collapsed economy , bankruptcies on a large scale , unemployment , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a big factor in the unrest of 1989 ) and agricultural failure if preparations for the looming planting season can not be put in place .
China ’ s economy has been slowing .
It took a hit during the Sino-U.S. trade war , ever before the demon virus escaped from Wuhan .
In 2003 , China ’ s economy was growing annually in double digits ; now it ’ s 6 percent and heading south .
The systemic dysfunctions—and Hubei ’ s horrific triage scenes—have rattled grassroots confidence that Beijing can keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using the same authoritarian tactics and even some of the same tools dating back to Mao ’ s time .
To be sure , Beijing has been turning to more high-tech levers of social control , and some of them have been used to battle the outbreak .
A new brand of facial recognition software is said to work well even with people wearing face masks .
More sensitive thermal imaging systems are being installed to record travelers ’ temperatures .
( A social media post , plus colorful video , declared : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even shows if you fart !
” ) Beijing municipal officials recently used mobile phone location services to text nearly every cell-phone user in the city , warning of an impending snowstorm and “ the need to take health precautions during this time of virus prevention.
” New mobile phone apps tell you when you ’ re nearing locations where people infected with coronavirus have been .
But every new innovation introduced to combat the virus also reminds Chinese just how invasive and controlling Xi ’ s reign has become .
Whether medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help buy time that allows governments to seek solutions—but they aren ’ t lasting solutions in and of themselves .
Recent decades suggest many Chinese have tolerated the political excesses of Big Brother , even when they disliked them .
But in return Big Brother was expected to protect lives and livelihoods from economic , social , environmental , and health threats .
Whether people think that deal still stands may determine if they can pull off the swift economic recovery that China , and the world , needs badly .

BEIJING—Returning to China in mid-February, I had seemingly stepped into a parallel universe. Much of Beijing looked, and even smelled, like the familiar metropolis in which I’ve lived for decades. Except for one thing.
BEIJING—Returning to China in mid-February, I had seemingly stepped into a parallel universe. Much of Beijing looked, and even smelled, like the familiar metropolis in which I’ve lived for decades. Except for one thing.
Where were all the people?
The Chinese capital has more than 20 million residents. But the coronavirus that burst out of Hubei province—infecting some 79,000 worldwide and killing more than 2,600 (mostly in China)—had almost emptied Beijing’s vast boulevards. I felt as if I’d stumbled onto the set of a post-apocalyptic film. (Though the city confirmed only four coronavirus deaths, everyone was jittery about infection.) In my silent apartment building, 36 pages of warnings, notices, instructions, and lists of fever clinics were taped neatly to the lobby walls, with 11 more in the elevator. They told returnees to Beijing to scan a QR code (leading to a nosy questionnaire) and isolate themselves at home for 14 days.
I was asked some obvious questions: “Have you been to Hubei?” where the provincial capital, Wuhan, was the epicenter of the outbreak. (I haven’t been for years.) Plus less obvious questions, like my ethnic background and “Are you a member of the Communist Party?” I thought: Does being a member of the Chinese Communist Party have anything to do with whether one’s infected or not?
Actually, the party has something to do with everything in China, especially under Xi Jinping—and suddenly, for Xi, that has become a double-edged sword. As president, party head, and top military commander, Xi has consolidated his authority, centralized decision-making, abolished presidential term limits, and promoted his loyalists. People expect Xi, China’s “chairman of everything,” to fix everything when it goes wrong.
And this is an especially critical test for a Communist leader who has steadily gathered power since becoming party head in November 2012, turning himself into the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, in the eyes of some observers. Now Xi and his party apparatus are scrambling to achieve two ambitions—both urgent but conflicting—at once. Xi must reduce (and hopefully eliminate) new coronavirus deaths and infections swiftly while simultaneously reviving China’s shellshocked economy. Problem is, people can’t get back to business if they’re hunkering in a bunker. Yet kick-starting economic activity is key if Beijing hopes to prevent this viral outbreak from becoming the “black swan” that Xi has always worried about, sabotaging China’s economy and the world’s along with it.
A man wearing a face mask walks out of a residential compound in Beijing on Feb. 22.
Meanwhile public trust in the system has been badly shaken, and coming weeks will determine whether the damage is irreparable or not. “Some days I don’t even make enough money to cover fuel costs and the daily 200 RMB [renminbi] I give to the taxi company,” complained Beijing taxi driver Yang Guoning. He said he’d asked the company for a daily subsidy but was told to “wait for the government policy.” What can he do in the meantime? “All I can do is show up for work and take all the precautions,” he said. What precautions? His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Wear a face mask. Disinfect my taxi. Roll down the windows, and get plenty of fresh air—after all, that’s what the government says I must do. What else is there?” He pressed the “down” button to further lower his taxi windows with an exaggerated gesture—and a look of disgust.
Most tragic are recurring reports—most often from Hubei but repeated in some other communities—of an overstressed public health system. Patient care has suffered from overtaxed medical staff, heartless forced quarantines, and shortages of beds, equipment, and diagnostic testing kits. Ailing Chinese were manhandled into strict isolation and then left untended. People suffering from unidentified or non-coronavirus complaints—from HIV/AIDS complications to cancer to injuries from exploding fireworks—were thrown out of hospitals to make way for high-priority novel coronavirus cases.
Such descriptions evoke wartime scenes from a combat triage tent—and that may be no accident. Girding to fight the “demon virus,” Xi himself has likened the anti-epidemic battle to a “people’s war.” The question is what happens if many people no longer believe him and begin to seek private survival strategies. For some, that might mean long delays before resuming work; if pervasive and prolonged, this could deal a body blow to China’s already slowing economy. Worse, others may try to evade their quarantines. The potential for even greater public health catastrophes is sobering.
Chinese President Xi Jinping checks the treatment of hospitalized patients at the monitoring center and talks to medical staff on duty via a video link at Beijing Ditan Hospital in Beijing on Feb. 10.
Early this week, Xi’s precarious balancing act was in full view. In a rare Sunday meeting, he said the crisis had reached a “crucial stage” and acknowledged “obvious shortcomings” in China’s epidemic response, leading to the nation’s worst public health emergency since 1949. As a further hint that China Inc. was not back on track, Beijing unusually postponed the annual National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp parliament. Then officials flip-flopped on whether nonresident Chinese stranded inside Wuhan’s drastic lockdown could travel out so long as they were asymptomatic. First, some were told they could; then, at the last minute, they couldn’t again.
Beijing’s default toolkit for any tough task—be it social, digital, economic—is full of quarantines. The Great Firewall of China and censorship protocols isolate most Chinese online users from ideas such as free speech and universal suffrage, which suffuse the free internet. To counter ethnic unrest in the majority-Muslim Xinjiang region, Beijing officials threw a security cordon around it, restricted internet usage inside the zone, and forcibly interned those perceived to be potential troublemakers in camps. When the government decided to experiment with free market principles in the post-Mao era, it built special economic zones to ringfence the quasi-capitalist enclaves from everywhere else.
The good news for Xi and the party at the moment is a decline in reported new cases and deaths nationwide (the vast majority in Hubei). The bad news, however, is that Hubei’s horrors have tarnished the trust many Chinese had in their officials’ ability to safeguard citizens’ lives and livelihoods.
Anger is rising in online memes. When the contagion first erupted, Xi was curiously absent from public view. He normally dominates headlines, but it was premier Li Keqiang who traveled to Wuhan on the requisite morale-lifting mission. Subsequently Xi materialized on a Beijing street, greeting locals and suggesting that shaking hands wouldn’t be a great idea right now. When the official photo of Xi in a face mask circulated on social media, many Chinese jumped in on the social media platform WeChat with the pointed question: “When are you going to Wuhan?” Despite China’s vigilant censorship of most negative online content, that sarcastic retort was not scrubbed.
A Chinese woman wears a protective mask as she dances in a sparsely attended park in Beijing on Feb. 23.
Then there was debate about Beijing’s requirement that citizens wear face masks in public. Virtually everyone in Beijing is complying. Still, many seem to know about Singaporean Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing’s apparent criticism of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam for wearing a mask while holding a press conference. In a tape leaked to media, he said had Singaporean politicians done the same, panic would have ensued and the public health system “would have broken down” due to face mask shortages. “You must have heard about what the Singapore minister said,” a Chinese friend said to me as we were catching up after returning to Beijing. “It was all over WeChat. Basically the minister was pointing out how incompetent Chinese officials are.” (For a while, shortages of face masks and other protective gear afflicted mainland China, and in Hong Kong, criminals broke into parked cars to steal face masks and even conducted an armed heist of toilet paper.)
It comes as little surprise that more and more Chinese seem skeptical about official Chinese epidemic statistics. Foreign critics have been raising eyebrows over Beijing’s funny numbers for decades. Worse, recently Beijing flip-flopped on which criteria to use to determine “confirmed” infections; at one point, case definitions flipped and then flopped back, all in about a week.
But the regime’s most dangerous moment came in early February, as anger erupted over the death of Li Wenliang. The 34-year-old ophthalmologist had tried to warn colleagues about an infectious new pathogen in Wuhan. Police rounded up Li and seven others, reprimanding them for rumormongering and “illegal behavior.”
“This is not rule of law,” the former U.K. diplomat and China expert Charles Parton wrote in a Financial Times commentary. “The room for abuse and fear is obvious. … All of that breeds distrust and cynicism, both with the people and among officials.” Li himself wound up infected by the virus against which he’d battled. After he died, the Weibo hashtag “Wuhan government owes Dr. Li Wenliang an apology” was viewed 180 million times before being scrubbed by censors.
Even some educated Chinese acquaintances seemed to believe outlandish conspiracy theories and ghoulish rumors about the epidemic. Lurking behind their jitters is an unsettling question: How much—and how many—would China’s mandarins sacrifice to save their own hides? Before my return to Beijing from a monthlong sojourn in Southeast Asia, Xi denounced grassroots “formalism and bureaucratism.” The regime sacked Hubei cadres and party members, 337 in Huanggang city alone. Outside the official narrative, dark tales emerged from Hubei of appalling government blunders. Apparatchiks in Hubei were said to have downplayed the public health threat at first so they could preside over two party meetings and a Lunar New Year hot pot gala for some 40,000 families.
While Xi remains the commander in chief, the numerous loopholes that allowed the coronavirus to emerge suggest China’s Big Brother regime is less omnipotent and more disjointed than one might think. His regime now presides over a system in which sycophants rule. The dangers of doing something risky outweigh the risks of doing nothing. For many apparatchiks, the default position is bureaucratic paralysis. As the China expert and former U.S. diplomat David Cowhig put it, Chinese officialdom is a coalition of “a lot of little ‘Big Brothers’” who can resort to many tools, such as propaganda and local power networks, to protect their interests.
Xi can give commands, but he cannot ensure that they’ll remain clear and not in contradiction with each other as they get passed (or not passed) down the line. For example, precisely how the regime will help cash-strapped businesses and citizens through the crisis still remains unclear to many of them, even though officials and corporations have scrambled to trumpet upcoming relief measures in the form of subsidies, loans, rent holidays, and the like.
“If Mr. Xi’s world is to end, it will not be with a bang or a whimper,” the former British diplomat Parton wrote. “But it might be with a broken economy.”
A Chinese man wears a mask as he rides in a nearly empty bus during rush hour in Beijing’s central business district on Feb. 13.
The big question is whether grassroots Chinese believe the regime is still keeping its side of the grand bargain that has prevailed since Deng Xiaoping’s post-Mao reforms. It went like this: So long as the Chinese Communist Party allowed citizens more economic freedom and rising standards of living—and for some, the dream of getting rich—in return, the people would not rebel en masse against heavy-handed social and political controls. If that bargain breaks down, Xi’s team is in trouble because ever since Mao’s time this deal has been the foundation of the party’s mandate to rule.
The government’s own quarantine protocols are another reason China, the “factory to the world,” has yet to reopen for business. Beijing already extended the Lunar New Year holidays due to the epidemic, so many workers have just started returning home to Beijing. On Feb. 15, Beijing announced its 14-day self-quarantine for returnees—meaning all who came back after Feb. 15 would still be sequestered at home now.
In contrast with the more heavy-handed lockdowns in Hubei, Beijing’s varieties of quarantine seemed a tad quixotic. I came back to Beijing before the quarantine announcement, so I wasn’t required to isolate myself for two weeks. (Anyway I’m a U.S. citizen, and eventually someone said foreign citizens were exempt.) Had I been a Chinese passport holder returning after Feb. 15, I’d be sequestering myself for 14 days. An article raising many quarantine questions was published in a local magazine, the Beijinger, and its headline said it all: “To Quarantine or Not to Quarantine: Confusion Reigns for Foreigners Returning From Overseas.”
Many Chinese passport holders returning to Beijing submitted themselves to much more frustrating routines. Some compounds—especially those that had lacked automated entry pass systems before—are now outfitted with color-coded entry cards. Access is once again ruled by neighborhood committees, which date back to Mao’s time. (Back in the ’80s, the Beijing-based foreign press corps saw them as eagle-eyed busybodies who spied and snitched on their neighbors.)
A Chinese woman wears a protective mask as she puts on make-up while waiting for customers at a clothing store in Beijing on Feb. 23.
Enjoying a new lease on life, these committees are functioning sort of as quarantine cops. They’re responsible for managing the brand-new entry-exit systems that record residents’ comings and goings and degree of isolation compliance. “If you’re supposed to quarantine yourself but don’t do it, you’re allowed to exit your compound—but then you can’t get back in,” said Linda, a 20-something friend of mine who returned to Beijing the same day I did; she requested that her real name not be used. “Some people have been barred from entering their own apartments, though that’s supposed to be illegal.” Her neighborhood committee calls her at least a couple times a day, asking after her health and whereabouts. The situation seems rife for abuse by the “little ‘Big Brothers.’”
Linda works in the beauty and cosmetics business, and she said none of her colleagues have returned to work. “They’re either in quarantine in Beijing or under lockdown in the provinces.” The shop where she works eats up more than 100,000 RMB ($14,285) in monthly rent, yet the glass-walled space sits silent and empty. With three locations in Beijing, her boss will likely shut down one of the three, she said with startling calm, “maybe by the end of February or early March.” When might the virus scare subside? Shrugging, Linda said, “Who knows? My brother works with tour groups going to South Korea, and he plans to reopen March 1.”
A Chinese security guard wears a protective mask as he stands in a nearly empty shopping mall in Beijing on Feb. 22.
If you reopen stores, will customers come? The glittering Taikoo Li mall in Sanlitun district is normally teeming on weekends. Walking through the vast complex on Feb. 20, I didn’t see more than two dozen shoppers. Virtually overnight, temporary fencelike barriers had appeared in front of the vast Apple Store, funneling visitors toward an opening where a black-clad temperature-taker with “security” emblazoned on the back of his jacket stood guard. Apple had just announced that it would miss revenue goals in the current quarter because of a “slower return to normal conditions” than it had anticipated in China, which is not only a big iPhone market but also whee most Apple products are assembled. Analysts warned revenues could be $10 billion below the $65.3 billion that had been previously expected.
The coronavirus outbreak obviously is hurting China’s economy, but it’s hard to know precisely how much worse it’s hurting compared with the SARS contagion that lasted from November 2002 to July 2003. SARS, a cousin of the coronavirus, infected 8,000 people, killed nearly 800, and caused $30 billion to $100 billion in disrupted trade and travel. It cut China’s GDP growth rate that year by about 1 percent. But in 2003, China’s economy bounced back to double-digit growth in the third quarter.
SARS had a higher mortality rate—9.6 percent—than this coronavirus. But for other reasons, the current outbreak could still live up to its label as Xi’s “demon virus.” For one thing, China’s economy today is much bigger, and more globally intertwined, than 17 years ago. It’s at the heart of huge global supply chains, capable of triggering all kinds of disruption far and wide, as Apple has discovered. Now China represents an estimated 16.9 percent of global output, compared with just 4.3 percent in 2003. The International Air Transport Association has already warned that the coronavirus contagion could cost the worldwide airlines industry nearly $30 billion in lost revenue.
Little wonder that Chinese authorities are trapped in a tug of war pitting their hunker-down-and-quarantine instincts against the back-to-business imperative. Officialdom prefers to call the two-pronged effort to contain the coronavirus while at the same time reviving the economy as “waging war on two fronts.” That’s a gargantuan task and markets got spooked by it on Monday around the world.
The two-pronged nature of Beijing’s challenge makes it extremely risky for the regime. Heightened distrust of the regime wouldn’t be so incendiary if it were due, say, just to tougher restrictions on academic freedom or a clampdown on Protestant house churches. However, eroding grassroots confidence could become a game-changer if paired with “a collapsed economy, bankruptcies on a large scale, unemployment, unpaid wages and inflation (this last a big factor in the unrest of 1989) and agricultural failure if preparations for the looming planting season cannot be put in place.
China’s economy has been slowing. It took a hit during the Sino-U.S. trade war, ever before the demon virus escaped from Wuhan. In 2003, China’s economy was growing annually in double digits; now it’s 6 percent and heading south. The systemic dysfunctions—and Hubei’s horrific triage scenes—have rattled grassroots confidence that Beijing can keep its side of the Dengist bargain while using the same authoritarian tactics and even some of the same tools dating back to Mao’s time.
To be sure, Beijing has been turning to more high-tech levers of social control, and some of them have been used to battle the outbreak. A new brand of facial recognition software is said to work well even with people wearing face masks. More sensitive thermal imaging systems are being installed to record travelers’ temperatures. (A social media post, plus colorful video, declared: “Never mind a fever, this even shows if you fart!”) Beijing municipal officials recently used mobile phone location services to text nearly every cell-phone user in the city, warning of an impending snowstorm and “the need to take health precautions during this time of virus prevention.” New mobile phone apps tell you when you’re nearing locations where people infected with coronavirus have been.
But every new innovation introduced to combat the virus also reminds Chinese just how invasive and controlling Xi’s reign has become. Whether medical or social or economic, quarantines can help buy time that allows governments to seek solutions—but they aren’t lasting solutions in and of themselves. Recent decades suggest many Chinese have tolerated the political excesses of Big Brother, even when they disliked them. But in return Big Brother was expected to protect lives and livelihoods from economic, social, environmental, and health threats. Whether people think that deal still stands may determine if they can pull off the swift economic recovery that China, and the world, needs badly.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-24--5G Explained – Part Two

5G Explained – Part Two

What Is Spectrum Anyway ?
As noted above , spectrum is the medium through which wireless communications transmit data .
It comprises the invisible radio frequency waves that carry voice and data signals across distances .
Broadly speaking , there are three main categories of broadband spectrum used in telecommunications : low-band ( under 3 GHz ) , mid-band ( 3-34 GHz ) , and high-band ( above 24 GHz ) .
Low-band spectrum has the lowest capacity for data transport but supports widespread coverage ( up to hundreds of kilometers ) across urban , suburban , and rural areas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spectrum frequency used to build 4G networks .
Mid-band spectrum offers a mix of capacity and coverage .
It includes the most coveted “ goldilocks spectrum ” range ( 3–6 GHz ) , which offers the ideal balance between coverage ( up to several kilometers ) and capacity—giving it the ability to cover large areas and penetrate buildings , while still carrying significant amounts of data .
High-band spectrum travels much shorter distances ( up to roughly half of one kilometer ) but offers the fastest speeds and highest capacity .
The ITU @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WRC-19 ) concluded this past November , with additional spectrum bands identified for 5G .
However , the international standard for which spectrum bands to use is still being hotly debated , due to differing preferences among countries .
Unsurprisingly , the largest divergence is between the U.S. and China .
While this process will attempt to standardize spectrum usage , it is not definitive .
Both first-mover advantage and domestic preferences play significant roles in determining the spectrum bands on which 5G networks will operate .
In order to operate 5G networks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to spectrum frequencies .
This has been a cause of contention both domestically in the U.S. and internationally , as different countries prefer to use different spectrum allocations for 5G .
A stark divergence has emerged between the U.S. and China on 5G spectrum standards , which carries international implications for the 5G regulatory landscape and could fragment markets .
China favors using lower frequencies ( the sub-6 GHz standard ) as the main frequency for data routing ( core communications ) , and higher frequencies to handle excess data loads ( supplemental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the opposite approach ( the mmWave standard ) , due to most low-band and mid-band spectrum being reserved for government and military use domestically .
Additionally , private companies such as Apple , Microsoft , and Alphabet all want to use mid-band frequencies to drive communication to their own Internet-connected devices and cloud systems , since they require the least infrastructure to transport data on .
The reason for difference in preferred radio spectrum frequencies is both technical and political .
Spectrum is a commodity and a finite resource , and there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parties interested in its use .
Various interests compete for the use of spectrum—governments , military , commercial—and the allocation of spectrum among these actors in most countries is an inherently political process .
Regarding 5G , once the exclusive right to operate on a spectrum frequency is secured , building a network that operates using that spectrum frequency becomes a technical process .
For 5G , lower-band and mid-band spectrum has the advantage of covering larger geographic areas but is not sufficient to handle the amount of data that 5G networks will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , higher-frequency spectrum—which covers short geographic regions—will need to be freed up .
Due to intense competition for use of the low- and mid-band frequency spectrum , the U.S. prefers to use higher-frequency spectrum for core communications .
State-run economies , such as China ’ s , are able to avoid this issue , since the government is not as impacted by outside interests and competitive pressures and can quickly and effectively allocate low-band and mid-band spectrum as it desires .
Countries around the world are aligning in different camps , largely driven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frequencies for exclusive telecom usage .
South Korea appears to support the U.S. position , Japan is split , with DoCoMo ( Japan ’ s largest telecom company ) favoring high frequencies , and Softbank ( its third largest ) favoring low frequencies .
And , in competitive markets , it is a convoluted , lengthy process .
The EU is attempting to allocate spectrum for both frequency ranges but must harmonize differing uses of frequency across twenty-seven member states and the UK .
In the U.S. , ongoing debate and intensive lobbying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as back-and-forth between the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) and the Trump administration , are stagnating the spectrum-allocation process .
Freeing up spectrum is an absolutely critical step to building 5G networks , and China has already deployed a domestic 5G network using the sub-6 standard , while the U.S. is still stuck fighting internally among different companies and government agencies over which spectrum frequencies to use .
China Is Ready to Capitalize on Its First-Mover Advantage The internal strife over spectrum in the U.S. and Europe is conferring the first-mover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Historically , with respect to telecom , the country with the first-mover advantage has been the one to set the global spectrum standard .
In the early 2010s , AT & T and Verizon deployed 4G LTE networks across the United States on the 700-Megahertz ( MHz ) spectrum frequency .
That led to the United States becoming the first country ( after Finland ) with a comprehensive LTE network that delivered approximately ten times the speeds of 3G networks .
U.S. companies like Apple , Alphabet , Facebook , Amazon , Netflix @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and services that took advantage of this bandwidth .
As 4G LTE was deployed in other countries , those same applications spread across the world .
Additionally , for 5G the general amount of spectrum made available gives countries an advantage in deploying their networks .
If China is able to set the spectrum standard for 5G , then it ( and other countries using this standard ) will have a distinct advantage in building out the next generation of software and applications that will be adopted worldwide .
China is on track @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States accomplished with 4G .
China is on track to repeat in 5G what the United States accomplished with 4G .
If China continues to push forward with building 5G networks on low-band frequencies and is able to set the global standard , the impacts for countries using the U.S. ’ s preferred high-band standards would be twofold .
First , the infrastructure demands for building out networks on high-band spectrum are more intense , requiring more small cell towers .
Ultimately , a 5G network built on this standard would take longer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particularly in rural areas .
Second , companies building out their networks on the high-band standard , or those looking to build Internet-connected devices on top of these networks , might not be able to compete in international markets operating on the low-band model .
The major risk for companies within the U.S. is that the U.S. pushes forward with its current proposed standard of using primarily high-band spectrum , and that the rest of the world moves forward on the more convenient low-band spectrum standards .
For companies outside the U.S. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two separate 5G operating standards , potentially limiting market access and complicating companies ’ abilities to build technology than can seamlessly function across networks globally .

U.S.: Falling Behind on Multiple Metrics Despite Newfound Success Against Huawei While the U.S. has repeatedly stated its desire to lead in 5G, it is increasingly evident that it is falling behind other major economies in 5G development in terms of spectrum allocation, standard setting, and global influence. However, the U.S. still controls a key part of the global supply chain through its semiconductor industry, and as the world’s largest economy it still holds the most potential to disrupt the competitive landscape through its actions. The U.S. is disrupting the global 5G supply chain by enforcing stricter export controls on semiconductor sales to Huawei, through measures enacted by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The U.S. has had success limiting Huawei’s market penetration, particularly in Europe, but export controls are resulting in significant economic losses domestically. The U.S. has floated plans to become more competitive in 5G by subsidizing a domestic Huawei competitor, switching to a wholesale spectrum model, and, most recently, encouraging open-source software development to push Huawei out of involvement in core network functions for 5G networks. As of now, none of these measures has been adopted. The U.S. framing 5G as a winnable two-country race between the U.S. and China oversells where the U.S. realistically stands on 5G and oversimplifies the state of the competitive playing field. As of now, numerous countries are effectively “ahead” of the U.S. in 5G development based on different measures. South Korea leads in the number of 5G subscribers, with 14 percent of its population, or nearly 10 million people, subscribed, compared to less than 1 percent of the population in the U.S. (17 percent of U.S. subscribers were still on 3G in late 2019), and it has also achieved the fastest mobile download speeds on its network. (The U.S. ranked twentieth, just below Sweden.) China is outpacing the U.S. in 5G base station deployment by a ratio of 14:1, with 690,000 base stations deployed compared to the U.S.’ 50,000. Despite U.S. 5G carriers’ advertisements of speeds up to 820 percent faster than 4G LTE, evidence is mounting that most U.S. carriers’ 5G speeds are still not significantly faster than 4G LTE, due primarily to limited coverage reach attributed to building 5G networks on the mmWave spectrum. If the U.S. truly wants to lead in 5G, by gaining a first-mover advantage in deploying 5G networks and building applications on top of them, freeing up more mid-band spectrum will be key. The amount of overall spectrum available on which to build the network creates an advantage in reaching 5G milestones first, but mid-band spectrum is the most optimal. On average, countries other than the U.S. are making four times as much mid-band spectrum available for 5G, with China planning to make seven times as much mid-band spectrum available. The one area the U.S. can still confidently compete in 5G is in building core networks, and in app development on top of 5G networks. However, in both of these areas, they are also constrained by domestic spectrum policy. In order to develop globally leading applications, it is imperative to develop on the global spectrum standard—an area where the U.S. has fallen significantly behind China and other countries focused on developing on mid-band spectrum. Additionally, the U.S.’s push to develop on the mmWave standard requires more small-cell radio towers and thus a more extensive RAN—precisely the area in which the U.S. does not have a domestic company that can compete. The U.S. has recently made a push to free more mid-band spectrum, with the U.S. Department of Defense clearing 100 MHz in August 2020, but the U.S. still lags Asian and European competitors. It’s efforts to cut off Huawei also achieved better results in the second half of 2020, and the FCC and the White House have increased coordinated efforts for a comprehensive national 5G strategy. Despite this, options for the U.S. actually leading global deployment and development on 5G are severely constrained due to lack of spectrum, diverging spectrum standards, and a lack of a domestic Huawei competitor.
Europe: Moving Increasingly Away from Huawei Europe is caught directly between the U.S. and China, while also trying to position itself as the global leader in 5G. Europe initially embraced Huawei’s presence, but since mid-2020 has pivoted towards pushing Huawei out of their domestic telecom markets. At the start of 2020, roughly 60 percent of EU governments still have either a memorandum of understanding or a commercial contract signed with Huawei. At the start of 2021, less than 30 percent of EU countries have signed Huawei contracts. With major bans being enacted in the UK, Sweden and France in 2020, and Germany still weighing a ban, Huawei’s future in Europe is more uncertain than ever. The decision to ban Huawei or opt for alternative carriers without officially enacting a ban, has not been easy. For Europe, the U.S.–China conflict over 5G means risking the security relationship they share with U.S., or their deepening economic ties to China, including the long-sought EU–China bilateral investment treaty, with the decision on 5G potentially putting European access to the Chinese market at risk. While initially it appeared, the economic interdependence would hold sway, given that China is the EU’s second-largest trade partner (after the U.S.), and the EU is China’s largest trading partner, the outbreak of COVID-19 has put significant stress on the relationship between many European countries and China. With a new administration in the U.S. signaling a likely return to multilateralism and a desire to re-invigorate U.S.-EU ties, Huawei’s position in Europe has significantly deteriorate since the start of 2020, when it appeared it would play a dominant role in Europe’s 5G development. The big winners from increased EU-China tension are the European 5G equipment providers, Nokia and Ericsson, who have been able to boost their competitive position within Europe amid the crisis. As home to the two largest Huawei competitors, and many of the world’s largest economies, Europe will play a decisive role in determining which spectrum and technical standards are adopted. For U.S. companies, the major risk is that Europe fully embraces Chinese technical and spectrum standards, or comes out ahead and sets its own standards, which would leave the U.S. building out a 5G network that is not interoperable with the rest of the world. From the European perspective, Europe led in innovation on 2G networks and, with Huawei steadily losing 5G market share to European competitors, there is potential to be a global leader in 5G development and deployment. In this regard, it is better positioned than the U.S. to be able to build networks due to the presence of Nokia and Ericsson. However, Europe also suffers from a competitive disadvantage, similar to that of the U.S., in that coordinating spectrum policy, 5G infrastructure development, and 5G application development is difficult at a regional level due to the competing interests of different European countries. Huawei's Penetration in Europe 2020 2021 Full Huawei ban Huawei contract or memorandum of understanding — Restrictions in place or under consideration Huawei contract or memorandum of understanding — No restrictions Opted for alternative carrier(s) Full Huawei ban Huawei contract or memorandum of understanding — Restrictions in place or under consideration Huawei contract or memorandum of understanding — No restrictions Opted for alternative carrier(s)
China: Fighting to Hold 5G Advantage Against Increasing International Pushback China’s widespread global infrastructure presence and role in standard-setting confers considerable influence over the software and apps that are able to run over its networks. The state-funded global success of Huawei, and China’s aggressive push to expand its technology across the world and gain clout in standards-setting organizations, had positioned it as the clear-cut leader in 5G development at the start of 2020. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been forthcoming in its goals to re-shape the global economy around China, publicly releasing its BRI vision, which includes a plan to lead in cyberspace as well as physically reshape global commerce routes, including the Digital Silk Road. Controlling 5G infrastructure is key to China achieving its global industrial ambitions, and as such, a major focus of state-sponsored infrastructure investment. By funding Huawei’s expansion in the 5G infrastructure space, the CCP can ensure that Chinese national interests and Chinese companies are best positioned to benefit from the rise of 5G networks. China has used 5G strategically as a means of reinforcing existing economic ties and deepening economic and political engagement in regions such as Latin America and Africa. China has laid out a coherent vision for its 5G ambitions and has structural advantages executing it due to its state-centric economic model. Despite a strong initial lead in the development of 5G infrastructure technology, freeing up significant amounts of mid-band spectrum, and launching 5G networks, China’s position has deteriorated significantly since the start of 2020. The U.S.-led ban on Huawei has gained significant traction, pushing Huawei out of markets where it had previously appeared poised to play a major role in 5G development. Compounding this issue, negative views of China have reached a historic high in many countries due to its perceived handling of COVID-19. (For a full breakdown and analysis of countries’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, see FP Analytics’ COVID-19 Index.) Another major weak point is China’s reliance on the U.S. semiconductor industry for the technology to operate its telecom networks, which the U.S. is attempting to exploit. These factors, combined with other missteps, such as the border clash with Indian troops, are challenging China’s dominant 5G position. With competition from Europe, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. gaining traction, China is struggling to maintain a lead in 5G which seemed insurmountable a year ago. Despite U.S. policies against Huawei incurring significant economic costs, the U.S. has so far doubled down, and appears unlikely to change course despite welcoming in a new administration. While China has a significant lead over the U.S. in terms of domestic 5G deployment, it is at a competitive disadvantage is in its regulatory and entrepreneurial environment for developing applications on top of 5G technology. China’s entrepreneurial environment has improved significantly over the last decade, but its state-centric model still puts severe constraints on companies’ ability to flourish in China. For companies looking to develop on 5G, China ranks thirty-first in ease of doing business (Korea ranks fifth, and the U.S. sixth), and China’s restrictions on foreign firms entering its markets could make it difficult for multinationals to develop on its 5G networks. Additionally, the Chinese government has demonstrated an increased willingness to crack down on its private sector in 2020, highlighted by its actions to block Ant Group’s IPO in November 2020 —posing further challenges for the countries private sector. China is still undisputedly positioned to benefit from the development of 5G significantly more than from previous generations of cellular networks, and even in the face of increasing international challenges Huawei managed to increase its market share in telecommunications equipment by roughly 2 percent in 2020. While China’s overall lead in 5G has deteriorated some in 20202, there were also significant successes. The outbreak of COVID-19 catalyzed the rapid deployment of 5G technology domestically—China used 5G to track and contain the virus as well as improve medical care and service delivery —and China is now the global leader in domestic 5G subscribers, accounting for nearly 70 percent of global 5G connections.
Asia: South Korea and Japan Emerge as Serious 5G Competitors, While India Spurns Huawei While the Chinese push to lead globally in 5G development has taken up most of the headlines, there are a number of other Asian countries with significant potential to shift the competitive landscape. Japan was the leader in 3G technology, beginning with the development of its i-mode mobile ecosystem in 1999, and it has ambitions to re-create some of this success with 5G. In 2007, Japan had emerged as the global leader in 3G with a 50 percent 3G market penetration. At the same point in time, the U.S. had a 3.5 percent market penetration, Germany had 12 percent, and Italy had 25 percent. That year, developers on Japan’s i-mode ecosystem were earning $9 billion a year. While Japan is currently still in the development stages of its 5G networks, with its 5G spectrum released at the end of 2019, neighboring South Korea was the first country to roll out its 5G services in April of 2019, beating the U.S. and China. South Korea launched its 5G services on a non-standalone 5G network (NSA), which builds on top of existing 4G infrastructure to increase data-transmission speeds. The U.S., China, and Japan have all followed similar strategies, hoping to build non-standalone 5G networks first, in order to develop technology and market leadership, and then move toward stand-alone (SA) 5G networks, which would enable the advantages of ultra-low latency and network-slicing functions, and facilitate a wider range of use cases for new devices. In addition to being the first to launch commercial 5G services, South Korea is home to Samsung, the only other end-to-end 5G equipment provider, and the largest telecom equipment provider in terms of revenue. Samsung has struggled to gain market share in the 5G equipment space against Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson, but saw some growth in 2020 placing it ahead of ZTE in 5G base station market share. Japan also announced plans to fund its own national champion to compete directly against Huawei in the global 5G market in June 2020. While China should still be considered the overall leader in 5G, due to Huawei’s global footprint, its lead in patented technology, its presence in standards-setting organizations, and the state of its domestic 5G deployment, its lead is becoming increasingly precarious. South Korea is best positioned to benefit competitively if the U.S. and China’s confrontation continues to complicate their planned 5G rollouts, due being the first to rollout 5G networks and the advanced state of its domestic 5G deployment. South Korea also favors using high-band spectrum in its 5G networks, the U.S.’s current preferred standard. The rest of Asia also presents a potentially key tipping point in the struggle between the U.S. and China. Huawei has had a long presence in Southeast Asia and was a major player in the rollout of 4G networks across the region, leading to Southeast Asia widely ignoring the U.S. ban on Huawei equipment initially. However, Huawei was dealt a major blow in the region when India decided to move away from Huawei in August 2020 following a border clash between troops in the Himalayas, removing them from Asia’s largest telecom market outside of China. Huawei also lost out to Nokia and Ericsson in a bid to build Singapore’s 5G network in June 2020. While Huawei maintains a steady presence in other Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, exclusion from India’s telecom market was a significant blow, and increased regional competition from South Korea and Japan have the potential to further damage Huawei’s regional position.
Latin America: Continuing to Embrace Huawei, Despite U.S. Pressure Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Colombia have signed memoranda of understanding with Huawei, and Mexico and Bolivia have signed commercial contracts with Huawei, agreeing to allow Huawei to build out the core infrastructure in their 5G networks. The Chinese government has been investing aggressively in Latin America, with $110 billion in total FDI spent in the region between 2005 and 2018. Huawei has been part of this trend, investing $800 million to build a plant in São Paulo, Brazil—where Huawei has maintained a domestic presence for twenty-one years. The U.S. has aggressively targeted Brazil in its efforts to push Huawei out of global markets, and as of now, Brazil is considering legal options for banning Huawei but it remains unclear whether any action will be taken. In November of 2019, Huawei announced a $50 million investment in Latin America to help local developers build apps on its networks. Huawei has leveraged these longstanding relationships, along with prices 20 to 30 percent lower than those of competitors, into contracts with Latin America’s state-owned telecom companies. Given the current offering of Huawei equipment, and the stagnating economic conditions across Latin America, many state-owned telecom providers are faced with the option of using Huawei for their 5G infrastructure or waiting another two to three years to deploy 5G. One notable exception to this trend is in Uruguay, where the state-owned telecom provider, ANTEL, has signed a contract with Nokia to build out its 5G infrastructure. Overall, Huawei’s acceptance in Latin America is part of general shift toward greater economic integration with China. A lack of domestic 5G industry competitors ties Latin America’s 5G future strictly to China. While Latin American economies are unable to impact development of 5G significantly, their 5G rollouts could be hurt if the U.S. bans export of semi-conductors to Huawei. Huawei's Penetration in Latin America Huawei contract or memorandum of understanding — Restrictions in place or under consideration Huawei contract or memorandum of understanding — No restrictions