| The more Boris Johnson's government wavered over allowing Huawei into Britain's 5G networks, the louder the warnings from Washington became. "Can you imagine Reagan and Thatcher having a conversation in the 1980s saying, 'Let's have the KGB build our telecommunications systems, because they're giving us a great discount?'" asked Matt Pottinger, the U.S. National Security Council official responsible for China. Britain went with Huawei anyway, a decision that may go down as a turning point in history. If we are in the foothills of a new Cold War, as Henry Kissinger asserted at last year's New Economy Forum, the balance of forces looks nothing like the last one. The possible outcomes are highly uncertain, too. This week in the New Economy  Boris Johnson. The actual Cold War—the one from which Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher emerged victorious—divided the world into two hostile camps. In Europe, NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks squared off against each other across barbed wire frontiers. But even then, Washington found it hard to limit the flow of technology. Three decades later, global value chains are making nonsense of Trump administration efforts to force countries to choose. Consider the fact that Ericsson—the safe option, for those who see Huawei's gear as a security risk—sources parts for its own 5G equipment from China. Britain knows Huawei better than almost any other Western country. U.K. cybersecurity experts have torn apart the company's software, discovering serious bugs but no hard evidence of malicious intent. And its regulators have devised sophisticated safeguards against possible espionage or sabotage. Britain also plans to mitigate any risk by excluding Huawei from the core of its 5G networks and capping its market share at 35%.  Some interpret Johnson's decision to rebuff Washington as pragmatism. From this perspective, he's provided a sensible template for countries who share America's distrust of Huawei but can't resist its low prices and high quality products. It's quite likely much of the rest of the world will copy Britain's cautious embrace of China's flagship tech company. The break goes much further than that, however. By ignoring repeated warnings to exclude Huawei, the British prime minister sent a bigger message to President Donald Trump: Nobody will join a Cold War against Beijing, not even Washington's closest ally. This is one of those moments that underscores how global power is shifting in Beijing's favor—not decisively, but in ways that shape the critical choices of governments, even when those decisions could compromise their long-term national security. Johnson's decision may come with a price, though. Not only has he jolted the "special relationship," but his gambit raises questions about the U.K.'s future as part of the "Five Eyes" anglophone intelligence alliance. Moreover, he may have jeopardized the jumbo-sized U.S. trade deal he desperately needs now that Britain is pulling out of the European Union. Still, no country can afford to have China as an enemy, a fact that makes Reagan-Thatcher era analogies fall flat. Johnson's momentous choice reveals the limits of Washington's efforts to contain an adversary by choking off its access to technology and going after its tech champions. It simply can't build the necessary coalition: This Cold War is winding down even before it's properly begun, and America seems to be all alone. China's $2 trillion check Here's another obstacle to America's efforts to thwart China's rise as a technology superpower: Beijing's almost bottomless funding for science and the pool of ostensibly willing collaborators in the U.S. eager for cash. The arrest of a prominent Harvard University scientist this week for allegedly lying to the FBI about receiving more than $2 million of Chinese money "underscored how serious Beijing is about attracting top talent," The Wall Street Journal said. The newspaper reported that, a decade ago, the Chinese government pledged to spend what would amount to more than $2 trillion in today's dollars to reverse a longstanding brain-drain. Wash your hands The journalist and physician Elisabeth Rosenthal covered the SARS epidemic for the New York Times while living in China with her family in 2002 and 2003, so she's well placed to offer advice on how to handle the coronavirus sweeping the country. She keeps it simple: wash your hands. Also, masks don't work very well. Keep this in mind over the next several weeks when we can expect growing panic as the numbers of those infected grow. And for those of you in America, remember that the flu, and not the coronavirus, has already killed 10,000 people this season. _____________________________________________________
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