This May Day, Sean Keane at CNet has come out with a helpful timeline to illustrate the complicated relationship between Chinese telecom company Huawei and the American government, as well as American corporations. The newest scoop from Huawei involves efforts to consolidate its relationships with Eurozone nations, given U.S. antipathy.
“April 29, 2020: Huawei reportedly expands partnership with European chipmaker in the face of increasing US restrictions on suppliers,” Keane writes.
Then there’s also a troubled history where the American White House has tried to ban doing business with Huawei and otherwise in protect American business and infrastructure against what it sees as potential Chinese espionage. For example, Keane’s entry from Nov. 22 of last year reports that “the FCC (barred) Huawei and ZTE from billions in federal subsidies, while senators want Trump to halt licenses that let US companies sell to Huawei.”
At the time, we reported on how American chipmakers continued to source from Huawei despite government objections.
Since then, lots has happened. The timeline provides a useful way to look all of that up, for instance, this pair of entries:
“Dec. 16, 2019: US House of Representatives passes bill barring government from buying Huawei gear.
Dec. 17, 2019: Huawei will launch the P40 Pro in March without Google support, and Spain’s Telefonica says it’ll drastically reduce Huawei gear use for its core 5G network.”
There’s also this assertion that Huawei may have sold to the Iranians in a way that violates U.S. sanctions:
“March 2, 2020: Leaked documents reportedly reveal Huawei’s role in shipping prohibited US gear to Iran.”
At the time that the U.S. administration first started to target Huawei, experts were talking about how hard it is to practice protectionism in a globally interconnected economy. Notably, the South China Morning Post published a piece with the following headline: “Donald Trump’s Huawei ban is a more severe threat to global economy than trade war tariffs, economists say”
Now, a year later, the coronavirus has added pressure on all of the world’s tech companies. Keep an eye on the telecom sector to understand more about how Huawei works, and how American and Chinese companies may either coexist, or generate new flame wars that may threaten the stability of global markets. It will move markets.
