China's 5G

5G could be the most important China’s technical leadership while we do not even build 4G networks. 4G network is only built by Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia (via acquiring ALU) and they continue to be the same companies building 5G. I bought ALU at $1 per share and Cisco stock expecting Cisco would acquire ALU for the 4G technology. Cisco missed the opportunity and the US government should have helped Cisco to do so.

It would be one of the most important technologies from China. Besides the fast speed, it connects devices to devices. In 2019, we do not really know what the technology can do. Today’s driver-less car need the reduced latency provided by 5G. If the bumper-to-bumper space can be reduced, so can the capacity of roads. Initially some argue the danger of microwave used in 5G and 5G needs more antennas. Huawei provides these antennas in existing towers.

Huawei is at least one year ahead of the other two major companies providing 5G networks. Trump wants to cut down China’s leadership with the 5 Eyes alliance banning China's 5G in their countries. So far 5 Eyes become 3 Eyes. Most likely Australia will use 5G from China due to her trade dependency on China. United Kingdom argues that they can build a layer to reduce the security threat. Behind the decision, it is the richest man from Hong Kong controlling the network providers in Britain.

Using threat of security is not really valid. About 20% of the network I bet is passing China’s routers. Every smart phone can be used as a spy device as evidenced by our allies spied by U.S. So far, there is no evidence China uses smart phones to spy. It is not hard for the Chinese to use iPhone to spy.

The Huawei incident raises Chinese nationalism by not buying iPhones (about 20% of Apple’s sales from China) and it motivates Huawei working harder to move their technologies past us. Trump is the best sales person for Huawei as their sales have been substantially increased recently both in the network and its smart phones.

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The above is from my book "Can China Say No?" available from  Amazon.com.