When the Sino-American Trade War Becomes Personal

On one of the major downtown boulevards of Tashkent is the Central Asian headquarters of Huawei, the now highly controversial Chinese telecommunication equipment manufacturer. The blue glass-tower, split into an A and a B wing, both emblazoned with giant red flower logo of the firm, are truly conspicuous on the streets of the Uzbek capital dominated by faceless concrete apartment blocks. It is around noon, and Uzbek employees, company IDs hanging from their necks, stream out of the towers front doors for lunch.

Any passerby who follows the recent travails of their employer can only wonder just how secure the jobs of these happily chatting Uzbek men in crispy white dress shirts are. Uzbekistan and Central Asia in general are completely lacking in home-grown tech giants. The remoteness of the region and their underwhelming potential as consumer markets mean that few Western tech giants maintain sizeable local offices. So it goes without saying that for Uzbek tech types seeking to stay close to home, a job at Huawei's big facility in Tashkent could be as ideal as it gets.

Given the current fiascos of Huawei, that is no longer the case. While there is no evidence that local telecom firms are severing ties with Huawei now and Huawei exiting the local market, the future is unclear. As the US pushes Huawei's suppliers to cut ties and governments around the world to halt businesses with the company, the future of Huawei employees in Tashkent is starting to look shaky. In a country without too many good jobs, if Huawei is to fail here, it is very likely the local white-collar professionals the firm hired need to take a lower-paying job or head abroad for equally good opportunities.

When mainstream media discuss the ongoing Sino-American Trade War, the focus has been overwhelmingly on how the American and Chinese businesses and governments will behave and fare in the struggle and its aftermath. But perhaps just as important, if not more, is the negative impact felt by individuals around the world, whose very livelihoods are becoming the collateral damage in the fight between the two giants. Those on the global economic periphery, like the Uzbek tech types, are especially vulnerable.

The irony is that often those whose lives are most disturbed by the trade war cares least about who comes out the winner in the trade war. An Uzbek student of a local information technology college noted that upon graduation, he hopes to work for a major IT firm. Asked where, the student remarked that "anything is fine. Maybe Yandex, maybe Google, maybe Alibaba." For people struggling to find good jobs, it does not really matter if the good job comes from a Russian, American, or a Chinese firm.

The same goes for people whose livelihoods are more indirectly connected with the trade war. The now-rising Uzbek tourism industry need all the foreign tourists it can get, so the government is playing no sides when it comes to attracting tourists. Visa procedures have been simplified for Americans, Europeans, and Asians alike, and tourist brochures and guides can be found in Chinese just as much as English. For the operators of the competitive tourist-oriented businesses, losing tourists from any particular country can be devastating.

Of course, a hit on the income will not be the only personal aspect of the trade war. In its assault on Huawei, the US government has made clear that Chinese laws can compel any individual or business entity to spy for it. Thus, it is inconceivable that Huawei will be the only target for suspicions and sanctions. Other Chinese businesses, individual Chinese citizens, and any Bob-Chinese businesses and individuals with any connections to China can be targeted for the exact same reasons that Huawei is.

The result may very well be a revival of McCarthyism, with the US government going on an endless hunt and arrest of anyone who can potentially spy for the Chinese government, with no hard evidence. Only this time, given the extent of the global tech supply chain and worldwide presence of Chinese businesses, persons, and interests, the hunt will be global and involve many people who are neither Chinese citizens nor have direct ties to the Chinese security apparatus.

At this point, personal damages from the trade war will no longer just be able losing one's livelihood. For many, they can lose their very personal freedoms, as they are subjected to politically motivated suspicions from which they cannot credibly prove their innocence. This will be unfortunate for individuals with a hand in both China and the US, but even more so for people in places like Uzbekistan, who are simply trying to make a good living, however they can, with little concern for China or the US.