Xiaomi proof that we're a military company, says Chinese tech slinger as it sues US over ban Chinese consumer tech company Xiaomi has sued the United States for designating it a "Communist Chinese military company" and banning transactions with the firm. In a stock market announcement [PDF] and filing [PDF] in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Xiaomi argues that the decision to name it a …
What this all points to, is that the ongoing trade war in the name of national security is not about to end with a change of administration.
I wonder what will happen if the US wins and US commerce no longer has parts, materials or products to sell because it all came from China.
Expect moves against Alibaba and AliExpress before too long.
Xiaomi argues that being on the list will cause "imminent, severe, and irreparable harm" by making it hard to access capital, scaring off suppliers and scaring off potential employees. Which would be sad seeing as the company currently makes pretty decent handsets.
Therein lies the rub, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck, and that duck's name is US protectionism. Xiaomi makes decent budget handsets, which are capable, at a fraction of the price of the likes of Apple. If you don't fancy splashing £1200 on a flagship handset that will be "old" in 2 years time, then £150 for something that you can write off after that time seems pretty attractive.
It's a pretty normal investor tactic. They take risks in the hopes that the possible but mostly unprecedented thing doesn't happen and they reap their rewards. For example, they invest in the newly public Saudi-Aramco even though it's majority owned by the Saudi government and keeps not appearing on international stock exchanges; they hope that Saudi Arabia won't decide to ignore them later. Or they let Facebook and similar companies change the way voting works so that their founders have total control over the board even when they don't own a majority of the shares. They take the risks that the companies might do something dangerous, like incurring a really big fine by breaking the law while not allowing investors to do anything to stop them. Investors take risks. It's how they work. Some are willing to take very large risks.
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