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Originally published in En Marcha (06/18/2019)

On Wednesday, June 5, 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited his opposite number, President Vladimir Putin, in Russia, with the aim of establishing a commercial and technological alliance between the two countries. In the framework of this meeting, the Chinese firm Huawei signed an agreement to develop and implement 5G technology with the company MTS, the largest mobile phone operator in Russia.

Beyond the technological and commercial aspects of the agreements, this is a new demonstration of the inter-imperialist struggle between the three great world powers, which only favor the interests of the monopoly groups in each country. The commercial and technological alliance of China and Russia creates a new possibility of contention in the telecommunications market worldwide, which would put the U.S. economy in serious trouble.

Russia has seen a solution to its own problems in a trade alliance once China declared itself the “best friend” of the Putin regime. China, for its part, applauds the closeness to Russian knowledge to strengthen its products.

The United States has forced the creation of this alliance that, in the long run, means a potential danger to its markets. The restrictions imposed on Huawei Technologies Co. forced China to look for a new support base in Russia. Experts talk about the creation of a “technological monster”: the knowledge of programming and hacking of the Russians together with the advanced hardware provided by China could monopolize the world market. It is true that it would lose almost $300 million in the U.S. market, but it is very likely that it will dominate global communications if it manages to develop 5G technology.

The Trump government has imposed harsh conditions on other countries for the development of telecommunications in their territory, threatening them with restrictions and punishment to U.S. companies to prevent their trade with other transnationals. In a few days there will be a G20 meeting of the 20 richest countries in the world, to discuss the issues that favor their economies. Certainly, the tensions between the countries will lower their tone in order to seek their own benefit, although the inter-imperialist struggle will continue for an indefinite period of time, in order to monopolize the markets.

Meanwhile, the world continues to be a spectator to see who dominates the market. In the long run, as long as we are not able to develop our own technology, we will have to put our information in the hands of the imperialists, who will sell it to whoever pays the best for it, because the rich countries are the only beneficiaries of any war.

Categories: Anti-War, China, Imperialism, International, Russia