Samsung is gearing up for Galaxy Unpacked, its annual summer mobile launch event. The Aug. 5 reveal is the first to be broadcast live from South Korea. New York was Samsung's pre-COVID locale of choice for such events. Innovation, collaboration and mobile agility are Samsung's top priorities in the new era it's calling the “Next Normal,” blogged Mobile Communications Business President TM Roh Monday. He cited roles mobile tech has played during the pandemic in distance learning, at-home fitness and online concerts. Samsung plans to bow five new “power devices” next month, said the executive, referencing handsets, hearables and wrist-worn products. Next-generation mobile solutions will have features that improve video-chat technology and help frontline workers “stay safe on the job,” he said. Roh referenced more personal, intelligent, useful and secure technology and a next-generation of foldable phones. The “wide range” of Galaxy 5G devices, available in more markets, will enable experiences “we can’t even imagine yet.” Samsung is continuing to collaborate with partners Google, Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify, and expanded its relationship with Microsoft so Galaxy smartphones and Windows PCs can share messages, photos and calendar reminders in real time, Roh said. Samsung will expand the Microsoft relationship through a gaming partnership with Xbox, he said.

China has no ambitions to “challenge or replace the U.S.” as the world’s preeminent superpower, contrary to Attorney General William Barr’s allegations that it’s waging an “economic blitzkrieg” to achieve that goal (see 2007160042), said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Friday. “Some in the U.S., driven by ideological bias, have been sparing no effort to paint China as a rival or even adversary,” she said. “Attacking China is their panacea to deal with every domestic political issue. The world has already seen through the U.S. playbook of fabricating narratives to deflect attention.” Concluded the spokesperson: “Possessed by such evil, they are on the brink of losing their mind.” The White House didn't comment.

China is conducting an “economic blitzkrieg” to surpass the U.S. as the “world’s preeminent superpower,” Attorney General William Barr told a group at the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum Thursday in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A “centerpiece” of the effort is its Made in China 2025 industrial policy for “domination of high-tech industries like robotics, advanced information technology, aviation, and electric vehicles,” said Barr. “Backed by hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, this initiative poses a real threat to U.S. technological leadership.” It defies World Trade Organization rules prohibiting quotas for domestic output, he said. It sets targets for domestic market share as high as 70% “in core components and basic materials for industries such as robotics and telecommunications,” he said. It’s clear that China “seeks not merely to join the ranks of other advanced industrial economies, but to replace them altogether,” said Barr. The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry didn’t comment.

The U.K. followed the U.S. lead in banning Huawei equipment on national-security grounds (see 2007140023) “without any solid evidence and under the excuse of non-existent risks,” said a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Wednesday. The U.K.’s action “blatantly violated” free trade rules and “eroded mutual trust underpinning China-U.K. cooperation,” she said. “China will evaluate this development in a comprehensive and serious manner and take all necessary measures to protect the legitimate and legal rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.” President Donald Trump’s disclosure Tuesday that he personally “convinced many countries” not to use Huawei as a condition for doing business with the U.S. was “further proof that decisions to ban Huawei are not about national security, but political manipulation,” said the spokesperson. Trump's remark “also shows the world that it is not China, but the U.S., that has been intimidating and threatening others and sowing discord all across the world,” she said.

Spotify expanded into 13 markets, including top-20 market Russia, it said Tuesday. Other new markets are in the region, including Kazakhstan, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The company is in 92 markets worldwide.

The U.K. government followed the U.S. lead in banning Huawei equipment Tuesday. “The best way to secure our networks is for operators to stop using new affected Huawei equipment to build the UK’s future 5G networks,” Media Secretary Oliver Dowden told the House of Commons: “From the end of this year, telecoms operators must not buy any 5G equipment from Huawei.” Dowden conceded the ban will delay the U.K.'s 5G rollout by two years and cost up to $2.5 billion. This “threatens to move Britain into the digital slow lane, push up bills and deepen the digital divide,” Huawei said: "We remain confident that the new US restrictions would not have affected the resilience or security of the products we supply to the UK." The announcement is “good news for the safety and security of 5G networks,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr tweeted. Others at the FCC agreed. “There is an overwhelming consensus that Huawei is in a position to exploit network vulnerabilities and compromise critical communications infrastructure for the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The U.K. "has taken a necessary step to safeguard its national security as it builds out advanced networks,” he said. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., welcomes "these developments in the UK" and reiterates his hope that the Trump administration "will begin to engage multilaterally with like-minded allies on promoting secure and competitively-priced alternatives to Huawei equipment,” he said Tuesday. “My bipartisan legislation, the United Strategic Allied Telecommunications Act, would be a major step in the right direction and I hope to see it included, fully funded, in the eventual defense authorization act," said Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control fined Amazon more than $130,000 for allegedly violating U.S. sanctions. The company processed online orders sent to a range of sanctioned countries in the Middle East and Asia, and didn't follow reporting requirements for more than 300 transactions done under a Crimea general license, OFAC said Wednesday. The company also processed orders for people “located in or employed by the foreign missions” of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Amazon’s sanctions screening program “failed to fully analyze all transaction and customer data,” which led to gaps in compliance, the U.S. said. The maximum penalty was more than $1 billion, but OFAC said Amazon self-disclosed the violations. Additional mitigating factors included that Amazon hadn't committed a violation in the previous five years, cooperated with the investigation and conducted an internal probe. The company didn't comment Thursday.

The EU Court of Justice should uphold standard contractual clauses and maintain the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, Information Technology Industry Council Senior Manager-Policy Alexa Lee said Thursday. A decision in the so-called Schrems II case is expected July 16 (see 1912190001). Any other scenario would “erode trust” in the EU’s general data protection regulation, which “codified several different mechanisms for the predictable outbound transfer of data,” Lee wrote. She outlined four other potential scenarios: the court maintains SCCs as valid but strikes down the PS; invalidates certain SCCs transfers to the U.S. and maintains the PS; invalidates some SCCs transfers to the U.S. and strikes the PS; or invalidates global SCCs transfers and strikes the PS.

The U.S. and China should “redouble” efforts to “implement all aspects” of their phase one trade agreement (see 2001160022), especially “where implementation appears to be lagging,” 41 trade and business associations wrote Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. “Significantly increased” Chinese purchases of U.S. goods in “the coming weeks and months would be mutually beneficial," said CTA, the Information Technology Industry Council, National Retail Federation, Telecommunications Industry Association and others. “We strongly support and encourage” increased Trump administration efforts “to work with the US business community and stakeholders in China to increase export promotion efforts at this critical time” of COVID-19, they said Monday. They hope successful implementation of phase one “will create the necessary conditions” for the start of phase two negotiations “as soon as possible,” they said. Phase two is needed to “address important outstanding issues,” including cybersecurity, digital trade and standards setting, they said. USTR, Treasury and the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry didn't comment Wednesday.

The Chinese shot back at FBI Director Christopher Wray for accusing China of waging a "massive" cybersecurity war against the U.S. “We regret that U.S. foreign policies are kidnapped by FBI officials like Wray and other anti-China forces,” said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Wednesday. “The words of some U.S. officials are full of political lies in negligence of basic facts, exposing their deep-seated Cold War mindset and ideological bias.” Americans are the “victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history,” Wray told the Hudson Institute Tuesday. “If you’re an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data.”