Can China really purge itself of foreign technology by 2020?

There was an interesting report on Bloomberg last week that claimed that China is actively working to purge government agencies and other key sectors of all foreign technology by the year 2020, citing security concerns. Considering how invested China already is in foreign technology and the fact that it doesn’t have a reasoable replacement for much of this technology, TechInAsia is pretty skeptical. 

Late last week, an interesting piece ran in Bloomberg about China’s plans to eliminate foreign technology from government agencies and key industries by 2020, mostly for security reasons. China has already begun pushing in this direction – Windows 8 is banned from government computers, Qualcomm got slammed with a massive anti-trust fine, and Apple products like iPads have been removed from approved government procurement lists. But can China really divest itself from foreign technology, at least in key areas? Not until it develops its own computer operating system. Most of China’s PC-based computing currently runs on Windows XP. Bloomberg reports that the government’s hopes for a new Chinese OS are based on NeoKylin, a so-called “homegrown” operating system that just underwent a successful test in the relatively small city of Siping. This, apparently, is China’s replacement for Windows.