With US-China trade war, learn to ‘play against the wind’, says Tencent chairman Pony Ma
The Trump administration has taken aim at China’s technological ambitions, laid out in a ‘Made in China 2025’ plan that is intended to guide the country’s industrial modernisation
The trade war with the US has woken China’s technology industry up to a disparity in capability and the country must learn to “play against the wind”, according to Tencent Holdings chairman Pony Ma Huateng.
“China still lags some distance behind in terms of technological capability,” Ma said in a speech at the Smart China Expo in Chongqing on Thursday. “The China-US trade friction not only woke us up to this point, but has shaken the foundations for the prosperity and stability of global technology.”
Ma is among a raft of technology industry leaders gathered in Chongqing for the three-day conference. Other speakers include Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma Yun and Huawei Technologies chairman Howard Liang Hua. (Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.)
The US and China are engaged in a trade war, slapping retaliatory tariffs on each other’s goods. The Trump administration has also taken aim at China’s technological ambitions, laid out in a “Made in China 2025” plan that is intended to guide the country’s industrial modernisation.
The US has said it would apply tariffs on products “containing industrially significant technology, including those related to ‘Made in China 2025’”.