Is Huawei Bouncing Back?

The US carried out a negative campaign against Huawei, but its sanctions have made the firm more innovative to break the technology stranglehold. Huawei is now bouncing back. The company has not accepted its fate or the vice the US has placed around it to cut it off from global chip supplies. 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

Washington’s primary weapon against Chinese companies has been its Commerce department’s“entity list” – a prohibition which seeks to block the export of sensitive or critical technologies to the designated target. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have been obsessed with it. The US believes it can contain China's rise in critical technologies by blocking supplies of high-end technology, crippling the capabilities of the businesses. 

Washington has assumed that China will struggle to innovate the respective technology needed itself. But because the United States made the challenge against Huawei political, the company, and China as a whole, has a point to prove by ensuring its success. The firm has subsequently poured billions into not only redeveloping and expanding the scope of its business, but also towards making itself self-reliant.

Huawei has one of the highest research and development budgets, the fifth-highest worldwide as a company, which last year alone exceeded $20 billion. In fact, this R&D budget alone as a company exceeds that of entire countries, such as Australia. How does Huawei afford it? The company receives billions through its dominance of 5G patents. 

Huawei also quietly announced that it would launch its own chipset by 2022. How is it going to do this? The company clearly has something up its sleeve.

But one thing is clear: against all odds, Huawei has set itself on the path towards breaking out of the US tech embargo placed on it. Americans have repeatedly said China can’t innovate and have persistently accused them of “stealing technology”.  But what happens if a single company not only finds a way to outdo this, but likewise provides means to other blacklisted firms as well? Huawei appears to be not only preparing to create new chips in the long run, but potentially semiconductor-related equipment too. 

In trying to kill the ‘monster’, America has created a bigger, stronger one. Washington’s politicians may not have realized their mistake yet, but when they do, it may hit them hard.

Reference:

The Chinese tech giant America tried to crush rises again, Tom Fowdy, 29/12/2021

(https://www.rt.com/op-ed/544709-us-campaign-against-huawei/)