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Comment by pcr0 | Hacker News Reader

Apples and oranges. Banning Google in China meant that its product (user data) couldn't be produced in China. That's unfortunate but they still have users elsewhere in the world and on VPNs. On the other hand ad sales _to_ China have continued growing ever since the ban.

Huawei (or any smartphone company) has no alternative to chips that license US technology.

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Last time I checked, most chips for smartphones were made in China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan.

US-made chips are necessary for high-performance computers; there is no China-made Xeon or Power9. But this is not smartphone stuff.

Re Google: ad sales in China did not stop, but Google received no revenue from that huge market then.

Correction, I didn't just mean chips made in the US but also chips that license US technology. This was the reason ARM, a British company had to suspend their relationship with HiSilicon, Huawei's chip manufacturer. [0]

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18635326/huawei-arm-chip-...

There's no guarantee that the chinese government would respect US copyright and patent law in a split up. It's just as likely the payments to US firms would end, and manufacture would continue.

If China takes that action the US can cancel China's bonds.

I don't think either side wants to take such drastic action though.

If the US cancels Chinas bonds the US looses any trust, i.e. everyone has to assume that their bonds are worthless. No sane person/company would lend the US money in that scenario.

And if China nationalizes US technology nobody will trust it either. No sane company would invest there in that scenario. I think whoever takes drastic action first would lose trust of third parties. Anyway, I don't think it's going to go that far, too much collateral damage.

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