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The Sanctions Age
The Sanctions Age is a podcast that explores how sanctions are changing the world.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Department of Treasury had imposed sanctions on fewer than 1,000 companies and individuals. Today, more than 10,000 entities have been targeted.
Leaders around the world are imposing sanctions in response to wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, human rights violations, and technological competition. As a result, a growing list of countries are targeted by sanctions, export controls, and investment restrictions, including China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria.
The Sanctions Age invites the people who understand sanctions best—economists, historians, lawyers, policymakers, and journalists—to explain their use and significance. Understanding sanctions is the key to understanding politics and economics today.
We are living in The Sanctions Age.
The Sanctions Age
Huawei's Thirty-Year Battle With U.S. Sanctions
Few companies better embody the promise and peril of China’s rise than Huawei. For nearly three decades, Huawei has steadily climbed towards the peak of the global telecommunications industry—first as a supplier of telecom infrastructure, then as a maker of smartphones, and more recently as a driving force behind Chinese ambitions in 5G, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence. Huawei’s ascent has also made it a prime target of U.S. sanctions, export controls, and political pressure. Since the early 2000s, Huawei has faced repeated confrontations with American economic power—from losing access to markets in Iraq and Iran, to getting shut out of 3G and 4G buildouts in the U.S. and Europe, to becoming a central focus of the Trump-era trade war with China. On this episode, we discuss Huawei with the reporter who knows the company best.
Eva Dou is a tech policy reporter at The Washington Post. Prior to joining the Post, Eva spent seven years reporting on politics and technology for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing and Taipei. Earlier this year, she published House of Huawei, a deeply reported account of the rise of China’s most successful technology company and its enigmatic founder, Ren Zhengfei. House of Huawei has been Shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year.
The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj. The show is produced by Spiritland Productions.
To receive an email when new episodes are released, access episode transcripts, and read Esfandyar's notes on each episode, sign-up for the The Sanctions Age newsletter on Substack: https://www.thesanctionsage.com/