Using some pretty antiquated parlance, Ben Harburg, managing partner at MSA Capital suggests in a CNBC story by Arjun Kharpal that Chinese companies are looking at strategic global initiatives more assertively and earlier in their business development.
“Our view is that this is just the tip of the spear, and that there is a long tail of Chinese built companies addressing financial services, education, health care, and other social applications in both emerging markets and even in more mature markets,” Harburg reportedly said.
Specifically, Harburg cites Chinese telecom firm Xiaomi and the TikTok platform, which has miraculously stayed Chinese, even after attempts by the American White House in conjunction with parties like Walmart Oracle and Microsoft to take it over.
Theorizing that Chinese companies have improved how they handle technology and created other standards for global operations, Harburg talks about the company’s reach and reputation, saying “Chinese business models are global best practices.”
Investors and others trying to figure out the future of China’s initiatives often point to one glaring example of how the Chinese government could easily mount an effort to gain control of the global economy.
Amid a dire global microchip shortage, the majority of semiconductors are now made in Taiwan.
Could China take over Taiwan in order to own that production? Some China hawks tend to think so.
“If you give the Chinese Communist Party control over large parts of the semiconductor industry, they’re going to have considerable leverage over their trading partners, and they’re going to use that leverage,” ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a recent press statement. “They’ve shown in the past that when they have a strength, they use it. The coercion would be anything that increases the party’s power — they’ve shown they’re willing to disappear people, silence speech and harm countries economically.”
So will it be a friendly business expansion or a hostile takeover? The jury is still out, but one thing that most people agree on is that China is ascendant – in politics, in economics, and in general geopolitical clout.
