US officials outline urgency of outpacing China in 5G telecoms technology, and how to do it
- Washington has already turned to private capital to spur fifth-generation wireless development, federal officials tell Commerce Department’s BIS 2019 forum
- The threat China poses to US national security and competitiveness in the telecoms sector dominates the day’s discussion
America’s free-enterprise structure will prevail over China, where consumers are held “hostage”, in the race for global dominance of 5G telecommunications technology.
That was the message from Washington on Wednesday, delivered by US defence and commerce officials at an annual conference on export controls organised by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). They said the US government was already moving to “leverage” private capital to speed up America’s development of 5G solutions.
“Repeatedly our own US companies have come back … and explained that they were lured into China with promises of accessing a 1.4 billion consumer market only to have technology transfer result in competition in that very same technology area,” said David Stapleton, the US Defence Department’s acting deputy assistant secretary for industrial policy.
“They were later forced out of that market and are now competing with those same Chinese companies back in America.”
The threat China poses to US national security and corporate competitiveness in the telecoms sector globally dominated Wednesday’s discussion at the three-day BIS 2019 conference.