By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
Once again, the world confronts anew the perils of its geopolitical discords. Rather than lessening, nationalistic frictions between China and the US are intensifying. Can Western technology executives, including semiconductor CEOs who went to the White House on Monday to plead for fewer trade sanctions on China, help soften the grounds and influence their governments to at least start talking more with China?
Has China become the single nation Western electronics manufacturers cannot do without?
This is the question on observers’ minds after the CEOs of Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc., and other chipmakers trooped to Washington DC on Monday to try and avert the imposition of a new slate of restrictions on the sales of high-end semiconductors to Chinese OEMs.