Chinese automakers have long been expected to make a concerted assault on overseas markets but, so far at least, have failed to do so in any meaningful way. DTW wonders why.

The recent (July 2020) decision by the UK government to ban Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant, from long-term participation in the national rollout of 5G mobile has profound implications for Anglo-Chinese trade relations. In a post-Brexit world, China had been cited as a potentially major trading partner for the newly independent UK, free to make its own bilateral trade deals. Such hopes now look increasingly forlorn.
The government’s decision has undoubtedly been influenced by pressure from the Trump presidency in the escalating trade war between the US and China, but genuine concerns about Huawei’s independence from the Chinese government, President Xi’s increasingly autocratic rule, the Covid-19 pandemic and the suppression of legitimate protest in Hong Kong have all led to a deepening suspicion about China’s political ambitions, benign or otherwise, as a major economic superpower.
The rapidly growing prevalence of the Internet of Things means that a wide range of Internet connected appliances, including automobiles, presents a security risk essentially the same as that feared from Huawei’s telecoms equipment. But while it may sound highly implausible that your Smart TV might Continue reading “The Chinese Are Coming… Or Are They?”