A directive was reportedly sent to China’s administration and state-owned enterprises after the Labor Day holiday from April 30 to May 4 to ban overseas-made computers within 2 years, according to Bloomberg. This is not the first time that such an order has passed through China, without success so far.
What Beijing wants, China cannot achieve
50 million machines may need to be replaced by 2025 if this directive is carried out. Operating systems, mainly Windows, are also affected. This decision should then be extended to the provincial administrations. Only a few agencies, such as those devoted to cybersecurity, will have special permits to acquire US or other hardware.
Silicon Valley: the party is over
This revelation of Bloombergbased on local sources, was met with some skepticism. The Register reminds that the FinancialTimes had published a similar article in 2019. Scott Kennedy, adviser on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic & International Studies believes that “ This is at least the fourth or fifth time Beijing has ‘ordered’ the replacement of foreign desktops, only to backtrack “.
This is at least the 4th or 5th time Beijing has “ordered” replacement of foreign office equipment, only to later back down. Unsure why this time will be different. Even if they swap in domestic brands, there’ll still be lots of US & Western tech inside. https://t.co/haHpcWAxlM
— Scott Kennedy (@KennedyCSIS) May 6, 2022
Beijing has been trying for a long time to emancipate itself from American computer technologies. In 1999 an operating system project, Red Flag Linux, tried unsuccessfully to replace Windows.
American products are limited on the purchase lists intended for the administrations. Companies like HP or Microsoft have created joint ventures with local partners, supported by the state, to gain access to Chinese public markets.
The growing rivalry between the Middle Kingdom and the United States made the goal of technological independence particularly urgent. In late 2018, the Huawei case, sparked by the arrest of chief financial officer and daughter of company founder Meng Wanzhou, exposed China’s vulnerabilities.
Driving tensions with the United States
The United States of Donald Trump, like that of Joe Biden, does not hide the fact that it seeks to slow down the technological development of China by closing the country’s access to the most advanced American technologies.
Beijing has made tremendous progress. Bloomberg reports the existence of a secret Chinese organization responsible for controlling and approving several local suppliers of sensitive technologies.
In the field of smartphones or servers, the giants Huawei or Inspur manage to stand up to the American giants. This is also the case for personal computers with Lenovo, already the most popular brand in China ahead of HP and Dell. This would be the company that would benefit the most from the application of Beijing’s directive. However, China retains its weaknesses. Semiconductors, despite its efforts, remain the sector where the country is forced to import massively.
Lenovo has set up its own chip factory and invested in 15 design companies, but remains largely dependent on microprocessors from Intel or AMD for its devices. On the software side, Chinese operating systems are struggling to establish themselves, although there are promising companies such as Kingsoft and Standard Software.
China’s ability to implement the ban on foreign computers in its administrations will be scrutinized. It will make it possible to gauge the country’s technological self-sufficiency, mainly in relation to its geopolitical rival, the United States.