The launch of the “unreliable entities list” ups the ante in the escalating commercial fight with the Trump administration, which has used its own “entity list” to bar Huawei from the US market on national security grounds.

Agence France-Presse Updated: September 19, 2020 11:24 am IST

The United States and China are engaged in an escalating trade battle centring on technology.Shanghai, China: 

China said Saturday it had launched a mechanism enabling it to restrict foreign entities, a much-anticipated move seen as retaliation to US penalties against Chinese companies such as telecom giant Huawei.

Amid China’s military drills near Taiwan and fears that the South China Sea is becoming a proxy for Washington and Beijing’s deepening rivalry, Asian analysts are considering the worst-case scenario

Caught between superpowers clashing in their own backyard, Southeast Asian nations might find staying neutral is not an option

Alan Robles and Dewey Sim in Singapore

Published: 9:00am, 19 Sep, 2020 SCMP

USS Ronald Reagan leads an American carrier strike group. Photo: US Navy

Across Southeast Asia, scenario planning exercises by analysts and policymakers preparing for the unthinkable – a military clash between the world’s two largest economies in their backyard – has taken on added significance in recent weeks.Tensions between the US and China, already fraught over trade,technology and the South China Sea, deepened as Beijing protested against Washington’s ties to Taipei and conducted military activities close to the self-ruled island last week.