BOTTOM LINE
KATE THOMPSON DAVY: US and China tech policy skirmishes now a blatant new cold war
The moves by both sides will be a generation-defining rupture the implications of which we can’t quite yet measure
While Ukraine smoulders under escalated Russian attacks this week, tensions in an altogether different sort of conflict have also been ratcheting up. The US and China have made clear their antagonism in the cold tech war that has been a backdrop to the digital age.
I appreciate that my use of the term “cold war” may rankle historians and military buffs, but I’m hard-pressed to find a better description. Unless we argue that in the context of the information era the current propaganda and policy sparring actually qualifies as shots fired, and we’ve escalated to ... I don’t know ... lukewarm war with cultural casualties? To do so would earn us even more ire, but here I am anyway, laughing in the face of angry comment sections...
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