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What has been happening in recent weeks and especially the last twenty-four hours around the Chinese communications giant, Huawei, is truly a highly critical conflict that is a stark example of how the game is now played on the international chessboard. It may not be played in the traditional way of arming, but it is just as cruel and relentless.

A few days ago, United States President Donald Trump, citing national security reasons, signed a presidential order prohibiting American companies from cooperating with the Chinese giant, in the field of telecommunications, the Internet and not only, Huawei, without permission from the American government. At the same time, Washington put Huawei, its branches and the companies that cooperate with it on an export blacklist, prohibiting American companies from selling them high-tech products.

Following these moves from Washington came Google's decision to exclude the company's mobile phones from Android operating system upgrades, as well as from some key Google apps.

Much has been heard recently about Huawei's position and role in global telecommunications and its involvement in China's intelligence services' surveillance of the rest of the world. The Trump administration's recent moves essentially put an end to this game.

During the 1960s, Washington began a collaboration with London on a global surveillance system known as Echelon. This system consists of a series of satellites, towers, fiber optic bugs, server stations, and backdoors in computer programs, all over the world. Very soon this system was expanded to include Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This group of countries is known in the field of international relations because of this system, codenamed Five Eyes. Echelon was created to confront the Soviet Union, but it was also used to combat terrorism.

However, due to the enormous advances in technologies, especially telecommunications, this system has now become a tool of the past. However, it continues to be a basic monitoring tool.

Given that China was decades behind America in this area, it created its own Echelon, and it goes by the name of Huawei. A company that produces everything from fiber optic cables, telecommunications towers, mobile phones and computers.

Unlike in the past, today's modern telecommunications and internet networks have central exchange points where information comes from all over the world and is spread everywhere. These central systems are what Beijing has targeted through Huawei. Whoever controls the centers has all the information at their disposal.

The business strategy of China's intelligence services – Huawei, is to offer to install the less central systems at a bargain price, in exchange for being the one to install and maintain the central systems.

This plan, apart from the fact that it has been understood by people who deal with these issues, also has a political disadvantage. As is the case with the entire Chinese technology industry, Huawei is not technologically self-sufficient. It absolutely needs technology imports from the United States. This is the main reason why one should not take China’s – Huawei’s – lionizations seriously. In essence, the Chinese demand that the rest of the world pay them to watch it and that America be the one to help them technologically achieve this.

Initially, Washington, and especially the ridiculous Obama administration, did not take Beijing's plans seriously, considering them foolish. This resulted in Huawei, with generous funding from the Chinese government, convincing some countries to install their systems. This rang alarm bells in Washington and now Trump was in the White House. Washington began to warn about the clear dangers of such decisions, going a step further, stating unequivocally that any countries that cooperate with Huawei can consider any cooperation in information exchange with the US a thing of the past.
Australia and New Zealand immediately cut off Huawei. The ridiculous Theresa May in Great Britain made moves by accepting Huawei technology for peripheral systems.

During this time, there were some developments that increased the intensity of the American reaction. First, the fifth generation in the field of mobile telephony, the so-called 5G, began to come to the fore, which eliminates the separation between peripheral and central systems. So any participation by Huawei carries very serious risks. Second, beyond the risks in the field of communications, many countries decided to move forward with Chinese systems and Washington cannot allow such a thing. Especially when Huawei set foot in Canada, the glass overflowed. Third, after seven decades where Washington implemented a foreign policy that separated economics from strategic issues, this has changed with President Trump, and now anything Chinese comes on Washington's radar.

Trade talks between Washington and Beijing have all but collapsed, and that should come as no surprise. Since the talks began, the Trump administration has set a series of non-negotiable demands, including an end to cyber theft, an end to forced technology transfers, an end to government subsidies of Chinese industry, an end to operational restrictions on US companies’ access to the Chinese market, and the right for America to impose any investigation at any time, on any subject, without negotiation, and with the right to impose any punishment it desires, on any sector of the Chinese economy.
And the mere fact that China sat down at the table with these demands from Washington shows how weak Beijing is in this negotiation. China's exports to the US market are four times more in products than American ones. China is also completely dependent on the US global security system for access to raw materials, energy and markets. In other words, there is no modern China without American interference.

The key man in this US economic hard rock is Robert Lighthizer. He is the US Trade Representative, and the entire planet would do well to keep this name firmly in mind.

Mr. Lighthizer recently realized that the Chinese were backing down on what he had convinced them to accept during the negotiations and suggested to President Trump that he more than double tariffs on Chinese products and prepared another new set of tariffs to be imposed in the coming weeks.
Trump's decision on Huawei clearly shows Mr. Lighthizer. He likes to play rough and he has a President who, unlike the instrument of globalization, Obama, loves to play rough just as much.
The US may be on its way to relinquishing its role as the manager of the international system, but that does not automatically mean that it will allow someone else to do so, and especially someone who has no chance of succeeding without Washington’s basic and active support. That is why Beijing will soon realize how far it has come. Of course, the Chinese are not prepared to accept this message with joy.

So the Trump administration has decided to end Beijing's ambitions, through Huawei, for global information control, once and for all. And because. As it seems the Chinese are not yet ready to swallow the hard pill, one wonders what Mr. Lighthizer and President Trump have in store for them. They certainly have a lot of ideas up their sleeve.

*Dimitris Apokis is an Internationalist and Journalist, a graduate of The Paul H. Nitze, School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, a member of The International Institute of Strategic Studies, and served for many years as an accredited correspondent at the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon, in Washington.