The Geopolitical Fight Over Huawei w/ Yangyang Cheng

Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Yangyang Cheng to discuss how Huawei became one of the most powerful companies in China and how current geopolitical narratives distract from the issues at the heart of surveillance capitalism in the US and China.
Yangyang Cheng is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.
Also mentioned in this episode:

• Yangyang wrote about how Huawei is emblematic of China’s capitalist model for China File.
• We also discuss Eva Dou’s The House of Huawei.
• Donald Trump discussed how the USA uses the same tactics the government accuses China of employing in bad faith.

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Chapters

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Huawei's historical context on the global stage (00:04:49)

3. On innovation and intellectual property rights (00:19:58)

4. The worker exploitation behind corporate success (00:25:55)

5. The geopolitics behind the global telecoms industry (00:34:05)

6. How nationalism serves surveillance capitalism (00:47:42)

7. Outro (00:52:51)