The Chinese government seems to be firing back, in the latest in trade-related volleys between the Middle Kingdom and the U.S. White House, where President Trump is often keenly focused on trade imbalances, with some amount of indignance.
In many ways, the newest announcement from China of an antitrust suit against Google can be seen as “tit-for-tat,” and may represent an October surprise that could roil U.S. and international markets.
Although this breaking news is scant on details, and the Chinese government is not fully explaining their new objective, the pending antitrust suit by the Chinese seems to have something to do with Google’s temporary license to sell to Huawei, a Chinese-owned hardware company that has some involvement in producing hardware for Android systems.
“The potential investigation conducted by China would … explore accusations that Google’s market position could cause ‘extreme damage’ to Chinese companies like Huawei, leading to loss of confidence and revenue,” writes Danielle Wallace at Fox Busines News, citing an anonymous source.
Experts looking at the new report also tie it to Trump’s aggressive stance on Huawei, TikTok and WeChat vis-à-vis U.S. national security concerns. The Americans are trying to remove both TikTok and WeChat from domestic smartphones, and the White House is suggesting U.S. firms need to blacklist Huawei and possibly another semiconductor company with integration in global supply chains.
So maybe a Chinese antitrust suit against Google is a way of getting back at the U.S. – but the plot thickens, in that the U.S. Department of Justice is also, at the same time, initiating its own antitrust case against Google.
The Washington Post reports that the DOJ opened its case last year, which coincidentally was the same year that Huawei reportedly asked China to launch its own investigation.
If Google, a storied multinational with extensive roots in the global tech industry, is simultaneously under attack from both sides of the globe, what happens?
Your guess is as good as ours. Stay tuned.
