Measures to limit Huawei's presence in the United States should not affect Alibaba and Tencent

Chinese Internet giants such as Alibaba and Tencent are unlikely to be targeted in the same way as telecommunications giant Huawei amidst growing trade tensions between Beijing and Washington, said on Thursday. analyst at CNBC.

First, the deterioration in US-China relations will likely affect Chinese companies in competition with US companies, according to Gil Luria, director of research at D.A. Davidson.

"The focus on Huawei seems to be motivated by concerns about secrecy and intellectual property, but Huawei is also a major competitor to many US telecom equipment companies," Luria told CNBC.

"Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Tencent are less likely to be directly targeted," he said, adding that his sales in the United States were negligible and that the outgoing president, Jack Ma, had "succeeded". to position yourself as friendly in the USA "

Nevertheless, he added, these companies could not escape the side effects of the slowdown in the Chinese economy, which was partially subject to pressure from rising US tariffs.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared the national emergency against threats against American technology by signing a decree authorizing officials to block transactions involving information or communication technologies that "pose a risk. unacceptable "for US national security.

Even though Alibaba, Tencent and even Baidu may be spared the stringent restrictions imposed on US companies, other Chinese IT companies could suffer.

"The scope of the order is potentially considerable and could have an impact on many Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers as well as on communication service providers," Rajiv Biswas, chief economist for the region, told CNBC Asia-Pacific global data provider IHS Markit.

The latest escalation of technological warfare between the world's two largest economies was reflected in the US Federal Communications Commission's decision to reject a request by China Mobile to provide communications services to the United States for reasons of national security, said Biswas.

Following this order, the US Department of Commerce announced that it was adding Huawei and its affiliates to the list of entities of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which would complicate matters for the Chinese giant telecommunications.

The adoption of the Trump administration Wednesday by the Trump government is a "serious escalation with China that casts doubt at the very least the prospect of continuing trade negotiations," writes in a Paul Triolo note, responsible for the practice of geotechnology in the Eurasia Group policy council. "If not carefully managed, this situation will likely expose American and Chinese companies to new risks."

Huawei's customer networks around the world could potentially be affected if the United States fully implemented their initiatives against the Chinese company because they would be "unable to upgrade their software, to perform maintenance and replacement of equipment "because they would no longer have access to US suppliers. , according to Triolo.

Biswas agreed, saying the turn of events heightened uncertainty about the "long-term" implications for non-Chinese communications companies using parts manufactured by Huawei and other Chinese network equipment suppliers. .

"The executive order of President Trump could also have broader geopolitical implications for key US allies, such as the UK and other Western European countries that plan to allow the use of Chinese communication equipment in their 5G deployments, "he added.

For its part, the United States is trying to convince its allies to prohibit Huawei from participating in their next-generation high-speed mobile Internet projects, 5G. Washington claims that Huawei's technology risks allowing Chinese spying via these high-speed networks – but Huawei says that security concerns are unfounded. Until now, European countries have resisted such calls from Washington, but new restrictions could persuade international operators to "immediately start putting in place contingency plans," Triolo said.

While Beijing expects to retaliate with countermeasures against US communications companies in order to show a difficult negotiating stance, Biswas said that the "war of technology between the United States and China" would probably be much longer than the commercial war, national security problems that can not be easily solved.

– Tucker Higgins of CNBC contributed to this report.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Jack Ma is the outgoing president of Alibaba.