Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs joined Techonomy for a keynote interview at our Techonomy NYC conference last year, because of his ardent and effective advocacy for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which we wholeheartedly support. Now, however, Sachs has gotten into hot water over comments he made recently on Twitter and elsewhere defending Huawei, the giant global Chinese tech company which has come under intense scrutiny following the arrest of its CFO by Canada on the request of the U.S. Huawei is accused by the U.S. of violating sanctions that prohibit the transfer of American technology to Iran.
This article in the South China Morning Post, a major newspaper in Hong Kong, explains Sachs’ situation in interesting detail.
Sachs’ position centers on his belief that the U.S. and China need to learn to work better together rather than to think of themselves as adversaries. Anything other than that, he says, will be harmful for both countries and for the world. As Bloomberg reported, Sachs quit Twitter after criticism of his Huawei article.
Sachs’ lens continues to be the SDGs and what will best help us move forward towards achieving them. We at Techonomy, too, believe that the SDGs are not a negotiable or optional plan. Failing to achieve them will be disastrous for the world.
Since Sachs has been a part of our own work, we thought it useful to share this news with our community.
