US tech companies find China favorable despite Trump 'order'

China's sprawling market and manufacturing prowess continue to appeal to US tech companies despite heightened trade tensions between the countries.

Noluma, a Wilmington, Delaware-based food technology company, is planning a tour of China this fall to introduce its packaging-measurement technology to the regional dairy industry.

"China is a vibrant market that sets trends globally, and we hope to be a part of this," Noluma President and CEO Div Chopra told China Daily. "Their digital and mobile capability has penetrated to higher levels than in the Americas and EU as well as many other parts of the world.  We are learning from the Chinese market."

Chopra said his company's technology can protect probiotic yogurt from indoor light penetration that damages taste and nutrients quickly. The company has partnered with Chinese yogurt company Honest Dairy to launch products at supermarkets and on e-commerce platforms in China.

Chopra said China's rapidly growing middle class increasingly cares about the quality, safety and freshness of the products it consumes, which creates a major growth opportunity for his company.

In contrast to US President Donald Trump's directive for American companies to cut ties with China, Chopra said they respect and will work to deepen their Chinese partnerships.

Trump has threatened to use emergency authority under a federal law – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — to "order" US businesses to "immediately start looking for an alternative to China" following China's announcement on Friday that it was raising tariffs on $75 billion in US imports. 

Trump also tweeted Friday that the US does not need China, and the US would be "better off without China".

On Sunday, however, at the G7 meeting in France, Trump maintained he had the authority to order US companies to leave China, but added: "I have no plan right now. Actually, we're getting along very well with China right now. We're talking."

David Firestein, executive director of the University of Texas' China Public Policy Center, said Trump's statements were "some of the most preposterous and absurd things that he has said as president of the United States. I think people are getting accustomed to the notion that you can't necessarily take seriously or literally every single thing that he says.

"We need China. Don't you doubt it for a second," Firestein said. "The American people don't embrace that view. No company in this country feels it would be better off without China."

While visiting the Bay Area, Firestein said it was "impossible to terminate business partnerships with Chinese companies under any circumstances. Companies do what's in their best interest; they go where they think they can get business done and make money."

To a startup like Tensorfield Agriculture, not only would it miss out on a huge market but also a supply source and the ability to quickly manufacture prototypes, were it to leave China.

In Shenzhen, the Silicon Valley-based ag-tech company is building robots that kill weeds with heat energy instead of herbicides. The robot, which provides the equivalent labor of 40 workers simultaneously, can address the shortage of labor required to weed manually, while US growers are bringing in workers from other countries, according to the company.

"Shenzhen has the fastest and most capable production timelines for prototyping that we've seen anywhere in the world. There is an enormous hardware ecosystem in China," Xiong Chang, CEO of Tensorfield, told China Daily.

"For a project like ours, we source components from a broad range of industries, including robotics, automotive, custom electronics, custom structural and fluid processing, and these components are available for delivery within 24 to 72 hours (in China) and at a fraction of the cost when compared with other geographies," he said.

The company also benefits from "an unparalleled program" provided by a Shenzhen-based accelerator in bringing prototypes through to production in the hardware space, Chang said.

As the trade tensions between the US and China continue to ratchet up, the Bay Area Council, a San Francisco-based business association, reiterated its commitment to China by saying the current climate is not deterring its work to "expand and deepen trade and investment ties with one of California's most important economic partners".

"The Council is continuing to work on multiple fronts to advance trade and investment opportunities at a subnational level," the organization said in a statement in response to Trump's tweet Friday.

The Bay Area Council said it will host the California Pavilion at the China International Import Expo in November. Dozens of companies that are based or operate in the Bay Area will participate, including Tesla, Microsoft, Ford, General Motors, Deloitte and KPMG.