Singapore must stay out of the 5G war between US and China

A NUMBER of countries, including Singapore, are caught in the middle of the trade war between the United States and China.

The global technology supply chain, which passes through Singapore, has been on tenterhooks ever since the US declared a national emergency, which arms the federal government with powers to block American companies from buying foreign-made telecommunications equipment.

The US curbs on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is the most visible fallout of this trade war. Huawei is one of two companies in the world (the other being Finnish telecom major Nokia) which makes all products within the telecommunications value chain. In other words, it manufactures both the networking equipment which allows for mobile signal generation as well as the devices (smartphones) that use these networks.