Since the National Football League (NFL) regular season started this week, we can use a football analogy for this story. Let’s say a football team—let’s call them Huawei—was going to win the Super Bowl with a touchdown on the final play of the game. However, while Huawei was celebrating, the red, white and blue penalty flags on the field were protested by the officials, which resulted in Huawei losing the match.
What we are trying to say is that Huawei is on its way to becoming the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. The goal he plans to achieve in five years. But just before Huawei passed Samsung and At the top, Apple entered the US and placed Huawei on its list of legal entities. This prevents the company from accessing the US supply chain, including Google Mobile Services (GMS).
A year after being placed on the entity list, Huawei has lost the ability to buy chips.
Just over a year later, the US Commerce Department changed US export rules that barred foundations from exporting chips that use American technology to Huawei. As a result, Huawei’s latest two flagship series (last year’s photography-focused P50 line and the recently announced Mate 50 line) use 4G-only versions of top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets.
Some inside Huawei had hoped that when Joe Biden won the 2020 election, the new administration would lift restrictions on Huawei. This has not happened until now. But change is on the way. Bloomberg reported the other day that the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has introduced a rule that would allow certain low-level technologies to be shared when negotiating standards with companies like Huawei.
Huawei in 2010 After being placed on the legal entity list in 2019, US tech companies have limited their involvement in standards-related activities. In Washington, politicians like the idea of increasing China’s participation in organizations that decide how technology is applied and used globally. This gives China an advantage over US companies, which it calls a national security threat.
U.S. stakeholders must be fully engaged in international organizations, said Undersecretary for Trade and Security Alan Estevez, especially where their critical but sometimes invisible requirements have important national security and trade implications. But the Commerce Department is delaying restrictions on sharing technology with blacklisted companies like Huawei to prevent these U.S. companies from applying for licenses whenever they become part of a global technology standards organization.
America does not want to give up its leadership role in technology.
The United States does not want to lose its leadership role in technology, and one way to ensure that this does not happen is to allow restricted companies access to important American technology. The Commerce Department has yet to release a list of technologies it will allow companies like Huawei to share.
Estevez added that the new law allows for “American leadership in these critical areas.” For companies like Huawei, this is a bit of a loosening of the limitations they find themselves in. If there’s anything positive to come out of this for the Chinese manufacturer, it’s that the company has learned it has the ability to work around US restrictions. If you don’t have the ability to use the GMS version of Android, Huawei has developed its own Harmonios, which is now in its third generation.
The company was forced to produce Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), which is now used by more than 700 million users. The move announced by the Commerce Department does not immediately improve Huawei’s chances of returning to the charts. But what it can do is get the governing authorities to come up with a solution that pleases all interested parties.
