China

A recent executive order from US President Donald Trump could seriously affect Apple's future iPhone shipments and sales. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released a research note which outlined the situation, pointing to the importance of WeChat in countries like China and the effects of a ban of the app from the Apple app store. Trump's executive order regarding WeChat was signed on August 6, 2020. Kuo estimates global iPhone shipments could fall by 25-30%.

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After successfully kicking out tech giants like Huawei and ZTE, the US government has apparently set its eyes on smaller fish. That said, the user bases of short-video platform TikTok and instant messaging service WeChat are so large that one can't take for granted the immediate disruption a ban would have on both the companies owning them as well as unsuspecting users. That, however, is exactly what will happen to both TikTok and WeChat if they don't give in to the new Executive Order from US President Donald Trump and sell their US operations to an American company within 45 days.

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Apple has long been trying to woo the Chinese market, its second-largest after the US, even going as far as making compromises it would not even consider doing for any other region. Given the tensions between the US and Chinese governments, however, the Cupertino-based company might feel like it's walking on eggshells. It doesn't help that it is constantly bombarded with lawsuits, the most recent of which could see it not only pay billions of dollars to the plaintiff but also temporarily halt the sales of almost all its devices in China.

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Just like Google, Microsoft hasn't had any real success with building a social networking network. In fact, it barely even tried beyond the brief research experiment So.cl and the acquisition of an employment-centric LinkedIn. If it weren't for all the focus that TikTok came under due to threats of a US ban, Microsoft's intention of purchasing a large part of the popular video-based network would have never come to light until the deal was sealed. Curiously, Redmond seems really bent on pushing through with those plans to the point of publicly talking about it in the face of US President Trump's threats.

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The POCO F2 Pro, or Pocophone F2 Pro, is a highly decent smartphone. It was released in May of 2020 running Android 10 with MIUI 11 inside. This device has a 6.67-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen up front with no camera to interrupt its rounded-corner rectangle face. This is one of the few smartphones to have ever been released with a mechanically operated pop-up front-facing camera module - and it comes in several colors, both wild and decent.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has dealt a new blow to Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE, alleging that they are both national security threats. With an official proclamation established, the FCC says that its Universal Service Fund cannot be used to purchase or otherwise support any services or hardware from either company. The move follows years of US government concern over potential espionage and security issues related to hardware from Chinese companies.

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If you're living in India today, you might be blocked from using a list of apps on your iPhone or Android device. India's government just released a list of 59 mobile apps that are banned in the country as of today. It would appear that the apps on the list are largely made by or distributed by companies and/or developer collectives based in China.

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The shutdown of Chinese facilities earlier this year due to COVID-19 showed just how much the world's products and businesses are dependent on them, perhaps much to the chagrin of the US. That said, the drama surrounding US export bans against Huawei also revealed some of China's own dependence on US and international technologies. One of the lesser-known dependencies is on global navigation systems, commonly (and inaccurately) referred to as GPS. As of today, China may no longer need to rely on the US-based system as it successfully launched the last two satellites to complete its own Beidou navigation system.

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Chinese state media has announced that the nation will launch its FAST alien-hunting mission later this year. The effort will involve China's 500m Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), which wrapped up construction in 2016 and went operational back in January after years of testing. China has an ambitious goal -- it wants to find intelligent extraterrestrial life, not just evidence of past life on other planets.

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If the US government is bent on bringing Huawei to its knees through trade laws, India's citizens are taking a different route to show their protest against China. A new app has landed on Google Play Store that singles out apps that originate from China as a response to a call for Indians to boycott software made by Chinese citizens. That call seems to have resounded strongly as the app gathered now over 5 million downloads in just two weeks.

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The US government's trade ban on Huawei was meant to bring the company to its knees both as punishment for its alleged cybersecurity crimes as well as a bargaining chip in trade talks with China. For the past 12 months, however, Huawei has found some ways to get around some of those restrictions to maintain its business. Over the weekend, the US Commerce Department dealt what could be the most crippling blow to the company, and, unsurprisingly, Huawei has responded with accusations that the US is attempting to strengthen its technology industry by crushing everyone else's.

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Some, especially governments, live by a "tit for tat" philosophy so it's really no surprise that China wants to hit the US back. The latter has not only extended Huawei's fate as part of the government's entity list, the US Department of Commerce has also made moves to deprive the phone maker of much-needed access to semiconductors for its processors. Since negotiations seem to have broken down, China is now threatening to respond in kind and put US companies on its own upcoming "unreliable entity list".

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