Chinese Telecommunication Equipment, Western Countries' Restrictions, Telecommunication Infrastructure, EU 5G Cybersecurity Toolbox, Clean Network Initiative

When the Iron Curtain fell down in 1989, some researchers expected a future world without barriers for people and goods movement to come. Such a vision does not seem achievable for paper, namely illustrated by the level of restrictions against deployment of telco equipment produced by Chinese manufacturers. While most western countries have raised some restrictions in recent years, many othercountries, not only in Africa and Latin America but also in the Balkans and other regions, either do not want to impose restrictions on made in China products in their critical infrastructure, or they would prefer to do but cannot afford to do so. The newly formulated hypothesis is that here, between countries restricting somehow Chinese products in critical infrastructure on one hand, and other not doing so, a new barrier could emerge. This new barrier is called here the Silk curtain. The paper focuses on measuring where the Silk Curtain emerges and how high it is currently (i.e. how big differences exist between countries with restrictions and without them). The paper concludes that countries on the restricted (western) side of the Silk Curtain are mostly richer than those on the opposite side, not mentioning other differences.

When the Iron Curtain fell down in 1989, some researchers expected a future world without barriers for people and goods movement to come. Such a vision does not seem achievable for paper, namely illustrated by the level of restrictions against deployment of telco equipment produced by Chinese manufacturers. While most western countries have raised some restrictions in recent years, many othercountries, not only in Africa and Latin America but also in the Balkans and other regions, either do not want to impose restrictions on made in China products in their critical infrastructure, or they would prefer to do but cannot afford to do so. The newly formulated hypothesis is that here, between countries restricting somehow Chinese products in critical infrastructure on one hand, and other not doing so, a new barrier could emerge. This new barrier is called here the Silk curtain. The paper focuses on measuring where the Silk Curtain emerges and how high it is currently (i.e. how big differences exist between countries with restrictions and without them). The paper concludes that countries on the restricted (western) side of the Silk Curtain are mostly richer than those on the opposite side, not mentioning other differences.