Global Asia - September 2019

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While the US-China trade war has dominated headlines and centered economic debate on US President Donald Trump’s hardline trade policies, another dispute heralds a much longer-term sign of rivalry: the use of technology from Chinese telecom giant Huawei in the global rollout of 5G mobile networks. The US has banned its use and is pressing its allies and other countries not to expose themselves to what it sees as the cybersecurity risks of Chinese high-tech hardware and software. It has also taken a tougher stance on the export to China of US technologies vital to Beijing’s ambitions to dominate key emerging technologies by 2025. The battle over Huawei is, in short, the opening salvo in a struggle between Washington and Beijing over who will sit astride the technologies of the future...

Asian countries are being drawn into that battle. Australia was the first to identify Huawei’s 5G security risks, but Asian nations are by no means eager to line up with Trump against it. The world’s largest telecom equipment provider is already deeply involved in the region’s economies providing 3G and 4G networks...

Our cover package examines the issue at large and the stances being taken by Asian countries. As this issue was going to press, Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s founder and chief executive, said in a rare interview with The Economist that the company was prepared to license its 5G technology to a Western company for a one-time fee — an extraordinary revelation. It remains to be seen in the months ahead how serious that offer is and whether it has any takers...

Global Asia Magazine Description:

Global Asia is a quarterly publication of the East Asia Foundation. The foundation, established in Seoul in January 2005, strives to promote peace, prosperity, security and sustainability in East Asia by creating an open and creative forum for the exchange of ideas on regional co-operation and integration, among other goals.
The mission we have set for ourselves with Global Asia is both bold and urgent: It is to provide a compelling, serious, and responsible forum for distinguished thinkers, policymakers, political leaders and business people to debate the most important issues in Asia today.
Global Asia is not a journal with a fixed point of view, or a particular agenda. Our aim is to give voice to the global dimension of what is happening in Asia. In our pages and on our web site, we aim for Asia to speak to the world, and the world to Asia. That is important at a time when this region is playing an ever greater role in world affairs.
There are other fine publications on international affairs. What sets us apart is our focus: Asia. We believe that the world is moving into “the Age of Asia,” to borrow a phrase from one of the articles in the inaugural issue of Global Asia in September 2006. This transformation is not going to occur overnight, but it has already begun.
The region’s dynamic economic growth, stable and accountable political systems, maturing democracies, and evolving sense of community are giving Asia greater weight in the world. These developments will have enormous implications for governments, businesses, societies and individuals across the globe. How that transformation is viewed, and shaped, from within Asia and how it is perceived outside Asia is an essential part of the story we have to tell.
The forces of globalization are having a profound impact throughout the world. And they are being influenced and channeled in different ways in different parts of the world. Ours is the story of Asia’s experience with globalization, and the ideas and debates influencing it. In pursuing our mission, we aim to play a part, however modest, in helping to shape the future of Asia.