China's tech rise gives US bad case of heebie-jeebies

On May 15, the United States Department of Commerce announced it had put the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei on its Entity List, which means US companies have to get the government's permission to supply Huawei with their products. Zhong Sheng, a columnist for People's Daily, comments:

US officials have been busy traveling around the world to promote their claim that "Chinese technologies are harmful". They do so because the United States wants to halt China's progress and development.

According to IPlytics, a German patent database company, in March, China held 34.02 percent of all the necessary patents for 5G telecommunications, while the US held only 14 percent. That is what some in the US are really worried about.

But the US moves to try to limit the space for Chinese technology only demonstrate to the world the US' bad intentions and how low it is willing to stoop.

In 2018, the total number of R&D personnel in China was estimated at 4.18 million, the highest in the world. China's number of patent applications and approvals both rank first in the world, while the contribution rate of technology is as high as 58.5 percent.

All these show that China is transitioning from being the world's factory to being the world's innovation platform. Why should this be threatening? If China's technologies are "threats", then the US must be a bigger "threat" because of its technologies.

The logic of these US officials is that since the US has done bad things with science and technology, then others will too.

But China has always benefited the world with its technologies. And in fields such as medicine, agriculture and aerospace, it has cooperated smoothly with other countries.

A new round of technological innovation is reshaping the global technological landscape, and any country that develops technologies must have a global perspective. Any attempt to curb global technological cooperation will be opposed by all peace-loving nations and people. All efforts to suppress Chinese technological progress will be in vain.