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The new Cold War, explained

Moving the Market: The technological cold war between the United States and China threatens to split the internet in two and create "a new Berlin Wall" that will force nations to choose sides between the two superpowers, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger writes.

• This divide, which we've been anticipating for over a year, and which we covered in-depth last week, was exacerbated after President Donald Trump decided to bar Chinese telecom giant Huawei from doing business with U.S. firms.

• The rub: Rather than committing to the U.S. and joining the ban on Huawei, many longtime American allies like Britain and Germany are hedging their bets as China races toward technological independence.

The big picture: The U.S.-China cold war is the geopolitical, technological and economic story of our time. And no one has put the current state of affairs in context as well as Sanger does here.

Key takeaways:

• "Washington is portraying this in Cold War terms, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arguing that world leaders will have to choose between an internet that projects 'Western values' ... and one 'based on the principles of an authoritarian, Communist regime.'"

• "Yet it is hardly that simple. ... Huawei and other Chinese telecom companies [will] most likely control 40 to 60 percent of the networks over which businesses, diplomats, spies and citizens do business."

• "Intelligence officials... are far less worried about China’s stealing data... than they are about the possibility that, in times of conflict, the Chinese authorities would order Huawei or other Chinese telecom firms to shut the networks down."

• There is also "a greater danger in the crackdown that Mr. Trump" has started: "Halting the flow of American technology to China, or even only threatening to do so, is bound to speed up China’s move toward technological independence."

• "That is exactly the fear of the Europeans, especially middle-size nations that value their trading relationships with Beijing as much as they value their military alliances with the United States."

Key quote, via Ali Wyne, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation: "We’re not thinking about the way that this will boomerang when we are dealing with a China that is much more self-reliant, much larger and much less dependent on the U.S."

Read Sanger's full piece here.

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Facebook's innocence abroad

Big in the Bay, big in the Beltway: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have defied a summons by the Canadian parliament to appear before an international committee and address Facebook's impact on privacy and democracy.

• Facebook is instead sending Kevin Chan, its head of public policy for Facebook Canada, and Neil Potts, its director of public policy.

The upshot: Member of Parliament Bob Zimmer, the chair of the parliamentary committee hosting the meeting, tells CNN that the Facebook executives could be held in contempt of parliament.

• "Collectively we represent about 450 million people, it's a bigger population group than the US," Zimmer says. "It's not that hard to jump on a plane and make some time to hear from legislators and answer their questions."

Why it matters: The optics aren't great for Facebook.

Why it doesn't: Zuckerberg and Sandberg aren't actually obligated to answer to any nation's government except that of the United States (though they do have to meet regulatory requirements on a country-by-country basis). Moreover, the parliament has no direct legal recourse against Facebook outside of Canada.

📱 Rally the Market 📱

In case you missed it over the weekend, Kara Swisher took a blowtorch to Facebook over its refusal to remove a "deliberately and maliciously doctored" video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

• As always, Facebook maintains it's not in the business of censoring speech. Swisher says the company is "abrogating its responsibility as the key distributor of news on the planet."

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Jamie Salter buys S.I.

Sign of the times, via Variety's Brian Steinberg: Meredith Corp. has sold the intellectual property rights for "Sports Illustrated" to Jamie Salter's Authentic Brands Group, the brand-development company that manages Juicy Couture, Nautica, and elements of the Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley estates.

• Price tag: $110 million.

What's next: "Authentic Brands acquires the rights to market, develop and license Sports Illustrated and its kids’ edition as well as its swimsuit and 'Sportsperson of the Year' franchises, along with the magazine’s photo archive."

• "Salter envisioned possibilities ranging from Sports Illustrated medical clinics and sports-skills training classes to a gambling business and better use of the magazine’s vast photo library."

The big picture: The print business is dying. And as Steinberg notes, this new pact "suggests owners of long-standing print-focused brands may find monetizing non-core assets easier than the traditional business."

• Bonus: Days before the deal, WSJ's Jeffrey Trachtenberg noted that Meredith was trying "to navigate a collapsing business by dropping news-driven prestige titles in favor of lifestyle and celebrity magazines like Happy Paws and People."

Market Links

• Zhang Yiming plans to create a ByteDance smartphone (FT)

• Jack Ma weighs raising $20 billion in a second listing (Bloomberg)

• Craig Federighi talks about Apple's privacy commitment (Independent)

• Reed Hastings steps up Netflix's Middle East production (Variety)

• Daniel Kretinsky buys himself a piece of 'Le Monde' (NYT)

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TV's #MeToo reckoning

New trends in television: In this week's New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum takes stock of "a deluge of TV series," including Lisa Hanawalt's "Tuca and Bertie," "that feel like a direct response to the #MeToo movement."

• These shows touch "on third-rail themes that are meant not merely to comfort or inspire but to unsettle."

• "In some cases, older shows have rewritten themselves, reinterpreting stories that once seemed romantic or funny, finding darker undercurrents and new angles."

• "Creators are visibly adjusting to, and at times struggling with, the changing landscape."

The big picture: "Television has always been a delivery system for morality. ... These recent shows mark a different kind of progress — an outward sign of inward changes, as if anxious debates within writers’ rooms have flowed into scripts."

What next: The Ringer's Zach Kram has seven takeaways from HBO's behind-the-scenes "Game of Thrones" documentary. It's worth it, if only for the cast's reactions to the plot twists.

See you tomorrow.