Tech gap between Europe and China is a digital emergency

Ursula von der Leyen: Upbeat assessment but it's not time to be complacent. Picture: AP

Chinese giants such as Huawei and TikTok are enlarging their global market share by the day. According to Eric Schmidt, a former executive chairman of Google and Alphabet and chair of the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Advisory Board, “China is on its way to surpass us in many, many ways ... we need to take them seriously”.

Though many startups eventually will fail, at least some of today’s highly-valued companies will go on to become the giants of tomorrow’s digital economy, dominating our lives as much as today’s big tech firms do. It’s no use complaining about Chinese state support or less-regulated US markets: The companies that succeed will be built on innovative business models that deliver what customers want.
Carl Bildt is a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020