What Do You Do With A Problem Like Xi?
The baying mob are on their cancelling march. Pitchforks in hand, charging through the cyber streets. Often through anonymous mobilising of a tiny group of intolerant belligerent extremists and witchfinder generals positioning themselves as the general public.
Some targets perhaps worthy. Way too many others though – whether they be young actresses possibly dating someone who votes for mainstream political parties with which they disagree, career academics that in less formal setting try and make a little joke which whilst well-intentioned limply misfires, all the way to those who may have held one opinion years before which has now since changed only to be hauled across the coals for it despite no longer being their thinking – victims of bullying. Completely undeserving of any opprobrium, Plain and simple.
Where is this mob when it comes to the threat colossus of our age, China?
What danger is more potentially devastating to the free world’s way of life and future equalities, progress and prosperity than the modern colonialism of Beijing?
5G is coming.
The world about to get its latest iteration of telecommunication boost.
Who is at the forefront? Yes, China. Without a single notable innovation to their name since their much flaunted printing press, compass, gunpowder and paper? Today, they flagrantly take other’s inventions, and with the huge subsidy of the communist state, blatantly copy it to sell through massive undercut pricing.
Whilst many a breakthrough product is often improved by subsequent players, attracted into a freshly hatched market’s supernormal profits, taking away functionality and adding predatory pricing policies rarely prove a longterm winner.
Huawei is the name in the frame today.
Stealing the IP of comms pioneers, then buying market share through price tags impossible to legally and ethically replicate elsewhere.
Many – usually public sector buyers mindful of the taxpayer purse – have been understandably seduced.
Let’s get this straight.
The Chinese Communist Party is a virus.
They oppress, lie and murder.
They are, to cite but just the Chair of the UK parliamentary foreign affairs committee, “a hostile nation”.
Despite any ‘marketwashing’ attempts to the contrary, they own, run and control Huawei.
Tasked with infiltrating foreign societies to undermine, weaken and ultimately render dependent upon them and their overall will.
Compelled to snoop and report back to Party apparatchiks in pursuit of their version of global dominance.
Then there’s the incredible conceit when as a supplier the Chinese government now says, ‘if you don’t deal with us we’ll make life difficult for you’. What on earth does that say about them? Trustworthy, decent and striving for the common good they patently are not.
Let’s leave aside the obvious wisdom, perhaps most famously framed by John Ruskin with his Common Law of Business Balance. When does the cheapest ever turn out to be the ‘best’?
They way Huawei’s opponents seek to end any next generation infrastructure involvement, is by focusing on their associated “risk”.
Labels designed to strike at buyer emotions abound. Untrusted, espionage and even ‘warfare beyond boundaries’.
Still, this focus on potential risk is indeed appearing to spook governments against using Huawei.
Who in your space, whether unknowing or flagrant, is such a “high-risk vendor”?
Without resorting to the (often doomed in our b2b sphere) outright bad-mouthing of competition, there is an awful lot of fertile ground to be gained when exposing legitimate risk the buyer may be leaving themselves wide open to should they (unwisely) choose someone specific other than you.
Do you know these risks, have proof of their impact, and have methods to subtly place them in the mind of your buyer?