China's antitrust probe into Google seen as warning shot to the US
Published: 10:40pm, 5 Feb 2025 China's antitrust investigation into Google , which does not offer most of its consumer-facing services including search and email in the country, seems to make little sense on the surface, but analysts said the move could be seen as a warning shot to the US and a threat to the Android operating system. The inquiry into Google was unveiled on Tuesday in tandem with China's fresh tariffs on US imports and new export controls of certain minerals, as well as the addition of two US companies to China's unreliable entity list .
The move against Google showed that 'Beijing has effectively fired a warning shot to Washington, signalling its readiness to retaliate,' said Angela Zhang, a law professor at the University of Southern California and author of Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism: How the Rise of China Challenges Global Regulation. US President Donald Trump, left, sits with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a bilateral meeting in Florida in 2017. Photo: AFP/Getty Images/TNS
While the one-line statement from China's market regulator contained no details about the investigation, state media has suggested it was related to Android – Google's open-source operating system.
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Asia Times
an hour ago
- Asia Times
Hot race for Pacific's deep sea mineral wealth
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The ecological consequences (destruction of benthic habitats, disruption of deep-ocean food chains, and disturbance of carbon sequestration processes) are well-documented yet remain politically unpriced. These effects unfold on spatial and temporal scales that transcend immediate accountability. Damage incurred in the hadal depths will not register in electoral cycles or quarterly earnings. This externalization of environmental costs is structurally embedded. States and corporations reap concentrated benefits (strategic minerals, technological primacy, economic gain), while the ecological liabilities are diffused across a global commons and deferred into an indeterminate future. The legal framework that will govern these activities, particularly ISA's provisional mining code, lacks both clarity and enforceability. In this vacuum, environmental safeguards function less as constraints than as negotiable instruments. Where conservation discourse exists, it is often instrumental. Calls for moratoriums or environmental safeguards serve as tools of diplomatic leverage or political differentiation rather than as expressions of systemic restraint. The logic of extraction, once engaged, prioritizes continuity; regulatory caution is outpaced by technological momentum. This is a structurally induced outcome of a system where access is governed less by rules than by capabilities. Control over seabed minerals is increasingly a function of who can act first, remain longest and extract most efficiently. Precedent supplants principle. The seabed will be shaped through deployments, licenses and machinery already descending into the depths. For states seeking mineral security and strategic autonomy, the calculus is clear: defer the ecological reckoning and secure the resource base now. Paulo Aguiar earned a master's degree in International Relations from NOVA University Lisbon, specializing in Realism, Classical Geopolitics and Strategy. As a professional in geopolitical risk analysis and strategic foresight, Paulo regularly shares his insights through various publications and on his own Substack.
South China Morning Post
2 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Ukraine bombarded by deadly Russian strikes as peace talks falter: ‘shocked I'm alive'
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Asia Times
3 hours ago
- Asia Times
Trump's Golden Dome will make US – and world
President Donald Trump's idea of a 'Golden Dome' missile defense system carries a range of potential strategic dangers for the United States. Golden Dome is meant to protect the US from ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles, and missiles launched from space. Trump has called for the missile defense to be fully operational before the end of his term in three years. Trump's goals for Golden Dome are likely beyond reach. A wide range of studies makes clear that even defenses far more limited than what Trump envisions would be far more expensive and less effective than Trump expects, especially against enemy missiles equipped with modern countermeasures. Countermeasures include multiple warheads per missile, decoy warheads and warheads that can maneuver or are difficult to track, among others. Regardless of Golden Dome's feasibility, there is a long history of scholarship about strategic missile defenses, and the weight of evidence points to the defenses making their host country less safe from nuclear attack. I'm a national security and foreign policy professor at Harvard University, where I lead 'Managing the Atom,' the university's main research group on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy policies. For decades, I've been participating in dialogues with Russian and Chinese nuclear experts – and their fears about US missile defenses have been a consistent theme throughout. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have already warned that Golden Dome is destabilizing. Along with US offensive capabilities, Golden Dome poses a threat of 'directly undermining global strategic stability, spurring an arms race and increasing conflict potential both among nuclear-weapon states and in the international arena as a whole,' a joint statement from China and Russia said. While that is a propaganda statement, it reflects real concerns broadly held in both countries. Golden Dome explained. Experience going back half a century makes clear that if the administration pursues Golden Dome, it is likely to provoke even larger arms buildups, derail already-dim prospects for any negotiated nuclear arms restraint, and perhaps even increase the chances of nuclear war. My first book, 35 years ago, made the case that it would be in the US national security interest to remain within the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which strictly limited US and Soviet – and later Russian – missile defenses. The United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the ABM Treaty as part of SALT I, the first agreements limiting the nuclear arms race. It was approved in the Senate 98-2. The ABM Treaty experience is instructive for the implications of Golden Dome today. Why did the two countries agree to limit defenses? First and foremost, because they understood that unless each side's defenses were limited, they would not be able to stop an offensive nuclear arms race. If each side wants to maintain the ability to retaliate if the other attacks – 'don't nuke me, or I'll nuke you' – then an obvious answer to one side building up more defenses is for the other to build up more nuclear warheads. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviets installed 100 interceptors to defend Moscow – so the United States targeted still more warheads on Moscow to overwhelm the defense. Had it ever come to a nuclear war, Moscow would have been even more thoroughly obliterated than if there had been no defense at all. Both sides came to realize that unlimited missile defenses would just mean more offense on both sides, leaving both less secure than before. In addition, nations viewed an adversary's shield as going hand in hand with a nuclear sword. A nuclear first strike might destroy a major part of a country's nuclear forces. Missile defenses would inevitably be more effective against the reduced, disorganized retaliation that they knew would be coming than they would be against a massive, well-planned surprise attack. That potential advantage to whoever struck first could make nuclear crises even more dangerous. Unfortunately, President George W Bush pulled the United States out of the ABM Treaty in 2002, seeking to free US development of defenses against potential missile attacks from small states such as North Korea. But even now, decades later, the US has fewer missile interceptors deployed (44) than the treaty permitted (100). The US pullout did not lead to an immediate arms buildup or the end of nuclear arms control. But Putin has complained bitterly about US missile defenses and the US refusal to accept any limitation at all on them. He views the US stance as an effort to achieve military superiority by negating Russia's nuclear deterrent. Russia is investing heavily in new types of strategic nuclear weapons intended to avoid US missile defenses, from an intercontinental nuclear torpedo to a missile that can go around the world and attack from the south, while US defenses are mainly pointed north toward Russia. Russia maintains a large force of nuclear weapons like this mobile intercontinental ballistic missile. Photo: Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via APPEAR / The Conversation Similarly, much of China's nuclear buildup appears to be driven by wanting a reliable nuclear deterrent in the face of the United States' capability to strike its nuclear forces and use missile defenses to mop up the remainder. Indeed, China was so angered by South Korea's deployment of US-provided regional defenses – which they saw as aiding the US ability to intercept their missiles – that they imposed stiff sanctions on South Korea. Now, Trump wants to go much further, with a defense 'forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,' with a success rate 'very close to 100%.' I believe that this effort is highly likely to lead to still larger nuclear buildups in Russia and China. The Putin-Xi joint statement pledges to 'counter' defenses 'aimed at achieving military superiority.' Given the ease of developing countermeasures that are extraordinarily difficult for defenses to overcome, odds are the resulting offense-defense competition will leave the United States worse off than before – and a good bit poorer. Putin and Xi made clear that they are particularly concerned about the thousands of space-based interceptors Trump envisions. These interceptors are designed to hit missiles while their rockets are still burning during launch. Most countries are likely to oppose the idea of deploying huge numbers of weapons in space – and these interceptors would be both expensive and vulnerable. China and Russia could focus on further developing anti-satellite weapons to blow a hole in the defense, increasing the risk of space war. Already, there is a real danger that the whole effort of negotiated limits to temper nuclear arms racing may be coming to an end. The last remaining treaty limiting US and Russian nuclear forces, the New START Treaty, expires in February 2026. China's rapid nuclear buildup is making many defense officials and experts in Washington call for a US buildup in response. Intense hostility all around means that for now, neither Russia nor China is even willing to sit down to discuss nuclear restraints, in treaty form or otherwise. In my view, adding Golden Dome to this combustible mix would likely end any prospect of avoiding a future of unrestrained and unpredictable nuclear arms competition. But paths away from these dangers are available. It would be quite plausible to design defenses that would provide some protection against attacks from a handful of missiles from North Korea or others that would not seriously threaten Russian or Chinese deterrent forces – and design restraints that would allow all parties to plan their offensive forces knowing what missile defenses they would be facing in the years to come. I believe that Trump should temper his Golden Dome ambitions to achieve his other dream – of negotiating a deal to reduce nuclear dangers. Matthew Bunn is professor of the practice of energy, national security and foreign policy, Harvard Kennedy School This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Thanks
