Mounting Friction Between China and the U.S.

Google isn't the only U.S. company creating friction between to the two nation-states. I've come across several articles now where this friction between Chinese and U.S. based businesses are mounting with not slowdown in sight. Are these early signs of protectionism and future trade wars to come?

As long as China continues to ascend its way to the top of world economies, there's no question investing and conducting business in China is going to be challenging for foreign companies.  If you don't believe me, here is a list of examples that have become public recently in chronological order,

• September of last year, President Obama imposted a tire tariff against Chinese based tires to protect the U.S. tire industry.
• China hit with $2.2 billion software piracy lawsuit for allegedly stealing code to write the censorship Green Dam software.
• Google threatens to exit China rejecting government anti-censorship laws and accusatory state backed hacking of Gmail accounts.
• China's search engine leader Baidu.com sues Register.com for supposedly allowing for a hack-attack against its DNS to be redirected to the Iranian Cyberian Army.
• Baidu wins court case against IFPI for allegedly facilitating accessible downloads to MP3s.
• Goldman Sachs beef with Shenzen National Power over oil derivatives contracts that went sour for the latter company.  Morgan Stanley had a similar incident 2 weeks earlier capitulating their request for the original amount contractually agreed to be paid.

China may be the beacon of light to a global economic recovery but it is also problematic to U.S. businesses and the latter's global hegemony.  The battle has begun.