High-speed 5G mobile telecommunications networks, we’re told, will modernize the nerve pathways of the economy and thus assist in the emergence of key innovations like Industry 4.0 or autonomous vehicles. There will be no additional benefits for private households. The introduction of 5G has been accompanied by the US trade war against China’s Huawei Group, the leading supplier of equipment for the latest mobile telecommunications standard. For the first time in a long while, the US sees its technological dominance threatened.
Wolfgang Müller is a social scientist and computer scientist who worked for IG Metall Bavaria until 2014. He lived in China for several years and regularly publishes on development and industrial relations in China.