Despite absence of giants at CES, China's tech train can't be stopped

The annual Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas earlier this month, sometimes comes across as a place to find products you didn't know you wanted to solve problems you didn't know you had

As the premier venue for the tech world for half a century, CES has been the stage for every development in the now dominant consumer technology sector.

The innovations it has showcased over the years range from the floppy disk to blue tooth to personal audio headsets: things that most of the world's population would now regard as practically old-tech. This year the agenda included 5G, smart cities and crypto currencies.

Not every invention automatically passes the "who needs it?" test and some tech breakthroughs seem set to fall by the wayside in the face of consumer indifference.

This year's contenders for potential obscurity included LG's Home Brew pods — think Nespresso for beer — and the vegetarian burger that claims to look like meat, taste like meat and even bleed like meat.

And how about the machine that automatically folds your shirts or blouses straight out of the wash?

Other innovations have a less narrow potential, such as Hyundai's walking car that can climb walls and span gaps, and which enthusiasts say will improve accessibility for rescue vehicles and emergency services.

Over the decades since CES was launched the consumer tech sector has been at the forefront of trade globalization. Innovations in one market are instantly adopted in others; products successfully developed in one country end up being built or assembled in others.

Like all modern trade, however, tech is subject to old-fashioned politics. This year's show was overshadowed to some degree by Donald Trump's America First trade frictions that have come to affect relations between Washington and Beijing.

The number of Chinese exhibitors was down about 20 percent this year after a record attendance of more than 1,500 in 2018. As China Daily reported from the show, many industry giants such as telecoms ZTE and smartphone maker Xiaomi were absent.

Despite trade tensions, it nevertheless emerged that China was the only country to actually increase the number of patents granted by the US in 2018. That trend has been spurred, in part by Huawei, the Shenzhen giant whose team was on hand in Las Vegas to demonstrate its Mate 20 smartphones.

Huawei, of course, has its own problems with the US linked to Trump's trade war. In December, Canada took the dramatic step of arresting Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer and daughter of the company's founder, at Washington's request. Meng faces allegations in the US of financial fraud related to breaking sanctions on the sale of high-tech equipment to Iran, both Huawei and Meng's lawyers denied all the charges and allegations.

The tension escalated in the very week of the Las Vegas show when Poland arrested Huawei employee Wang Weijing for alleged espionage. In that case, the company distanced itself from the employee and his alleged activities.

Officially, the arrests have been linked to concerns expressed in Washington and some other Western capitals about Huawei's leading role in the 5G telecoms era and its alleged potential for undermining their data security.

Even some Western commentators are skeptical about the trade friction in general and the Huawei arrests in particular.

While Trump's campaign has targeted trade imbalances, some suspect it has more to do with propping up the US claim to be the world's top tech superpower. Huawei is one of those Chinese companies poised to challenge US supremacy.

The company itself has claimed the Western concerns are ideologically motivated and chief executive Ken Hu said that countries who sought to block the world's biggest telecoms equipment supplier from their telecoms infrastructure would damage their own interests in the global move to 5G.

It is inconceivable that China or its companies will be somehow cut out of the next stage of the global tech revolution whatever the motivation of Western politicians and policy makers.

Whatever the ups and downs of the trade conflict, the Chinese tech train is too big and too fast to stop. As Chen Wenhai of the China Information Technology Expo, China's own version of the CES, said in Las Vegas:

"Compared to Silicon Valley, Shenzhen is more advanced in creating consumer goods and making ideas profitable. There are so many opportunities for US and China's further cooperation. I hope that the US can be open-minded, just like our market is always open for them."

Although humanity might progress without a robot shirt-folder or pod-brewed beer, the overall tech revolution marches onwards. So cooperation rather than conflict seems a good place to start if the super-gadgets of tomorrow are to benefit the whole world.

Harvey Morris is a senior media consultant for China Daily UK