This is pretty standard American ‘negotiation’ tactics of first creating the problem, and they offering to ‘resolve’ it as a ‘concession’ to basically try and get real Chinese concessions for nothing.
The only difference is that historically, past American presidents have gone with the typical mafia ‘nice xxx you got there, shame for something to happen to it’ (mainly because America and China are so mutually dependent economically that actually setting something on fire burns America as much as it does China - which was done by design by China as a safeguard against exactly this kind of behaviour) routine, or picked geographical issues like Taiwan/SCS/Diaoyu islands/Korea/human rights etc, where it has limited exposure to set the fire.
Yes, ZTE might have violated American sanctions, but so do companies all over the world all the time. Almost always, a pay off in the form of a fine is sufficient. The tech world was taken aback by the extremeness of the US justifice department move against ZTE, so you can bet your bottom dollar the initial decison was politically motivated.
What Trump did, in typical act first think later fashion, is set a serious fire that is now causing real damage to American as well as Chinese interests, and is only now belated realising he probably shouldn’t have done that, and is looking for a face saving way to try and put it out to limit the damage done to American interests by trying to make it look like he is trying to do China a favour in an act so transparent and awkward, it is deserving of a rasberry award.
China may play along on the surface, but as has already been noted, this move will absolutely reinforce Chinese determination to not only press firmly ahead with Made in China 2025, but also massively expand on that.
The big difference is that this Trump move has hammered home to all Chinese companies how exposed they could be to America whims and political brinkmanship, so private Chinese companies are now going to be pushing for MIC2025 as hard, if not harder, than the Chinese government. So rather than having the Chinese government pushing and dragging Chinese companies to invest in technological self reliance, like a parent trying to get unwilling children to brush their teeth and do their homework, Chinese companies are now motivated like never before to not suffer a similar fate to ZTE.
I would also not be surprised if strategically targeted cyber espionage activities start picking up once more. Especially if America seriously tries to follow through with its attempt to stop Chinese companies from acquiring advance tech firms through legitimate sales and transfers. After all, if America and the West doesn’t want to play by the rules of capitalism any more, why would they expect China to not respond accordingly?
), do you think the US intelligence is stupid? Do you think you can always out-smart them, being one step ahead of them? You may not fall at the place where ZTE has fallen, but can you be smatter than ZTE and US intelligence and never fall? Nobody can. So similar event like ZTE will happen in the future to someone else. Then what is all these harsh and tough all about?
