How Amazon's retreat from China marks a global 'rebordering'
Published Date: 4/19/2019
Source: axios.com
Amazon's decision to all but shut down operations in China is another step in a reorganization of the world into two distinct, digitally driven universes.What's happening: In an announcement yesterday, Amazon said it will give up the local Chinese market, making its online store there solely a conduit for foreign goods.Chinese analysts say the move follows tin-eared marketing and enormous gaffes by Amazon going back years, report the FT's Shannon Bond, Yuan Yang and Nian Liu.But it also comes as the U.S., China and Russia are moving to cordon off cyberspace into their own zones of commercial, military and geopolitical influence.As we have reported, this "rebordering," as some experts call it, is visible in the rollout of 5G internet, Russia's stated aim of cutting itself off from the global internet — and the growth of e-commerce."We are seeing rebordering in the behavior of both private and public actors," said Janice Gross Stein, a professor at the University of Toronto.Go deeper:A world and web dividedWhy Huawei is the 5G bogeyman