A logo of Google is displayed in front of a building that houses Google's office in Haidan, Beijing on Oct. 8, 2020. Credit: Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images
In late September, Reuters reported that China was preparing an antitrust case against Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, over its Android operating system, which has gained a dominant position in China’s mobile phone market. The government’s investigation, the report said, came at the suggestion of Huawei, the country’s giant telecom firm.
That should tell you everything you need to know. Huawei is suffering under a sustained U.S. effort aimed at restricting the firm’s use of American technology and blocking the sale of its equipment to U.S. allies. One of the U.S.’s many acts against Huawei is to deprive the telecom giant use of the Android operating system, which has thereby made Huawei mobile phones less attractive to buyers outside China. The U.S. ban on exporting goods to Huawei has also forced the company to develop its own, likely less popular, operating system.
To casual observers this is yet another tit-for-tat act occurring between
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
Increasingly, Democrats and Republicans believe that climate change and China pose a single interconnected challenge. As a result — and for the first time ever — a window is opening for bipartisan cooperation on climate policy. Historically progressive ideas like a 'carbon border adjustment mechanism' now have conservative champions, for instance. But with Washington's main focus on the Warming War with China, can it still save the planet?
A look at China’s electricity grid: how it works, who foots the bill, and how its structure leads to power crunches and expensive prices despite the relative abundance of energy in China.
The academic talks about the changing understanding of Leninist regimes; common misperceptions of the post-Mao era; and what the collapse of the Soviet Union means for China today.
