How Chinese firms can avoid a Europe-style backlash in Southeast Asia

Tan Poh Hwee is president of the Asia Academy of Digital Economics, a Singapore-based non-profit, and a corresponding fellow of the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence.

China’s technology companies face a question that no pricing strategy can answer: what will their success do to their trading partners?

In Europe, that question has become politically urgent. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warns of a “second China shock”, linking persistent trade imbalances to the erosion of Europe’s industrial base. Europe’s dispute carries a broader warning: affordable products can coexist with deep anxiety over the loss of productive capability.

If industrial dumping is the charge China faces in Europe, Chinese companies must prevent “technological dumping” from becoming the charge they face in Southeast Asia.