Sun, 05/26/2019 - 12:05

Zero hedge 

In China, President Xi was busy exhorting the rest of the world (presumably excluding the US) to cooperate with Beijing in developing new Internet, big data and artificial intelligence resources in a letter to the China International Big Data Industry Expo, which kicked off Sunday in the southwestern city of Guiyang, according to state-run business newswire Xinhua.

Chinese tech and Internet giants dominated the big data expo, which drew some 26,000 representatives from nearly 55 countries to marvel at China's emerging leadership in the big data industry. Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba and other Chinese firms were heavily represented.

China also used the opportunity to denounce Washington's blacklisting of Huawei.

The Huawei ban is a "rough" disruption to the market, Wang Zhijun, vice head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in an interview on state broadcaster China Central Television. He urged the U.S. government to stop "unreasonable suppression" of China’s integrated circuit and electronic companies.

Bottom line: As Washington steps up its aggressive trade rhetoric, Beijing is stepping up its efforts to recruit more geopolitical allies to free itself of its reliance on American tech - while reminding the world that it can create serious disruptions in the global supply chain with very little effort.