Huawei threatens the United States with possible retaliation from the Chinese government. According to the manufacturer, Beijing could indeed decide to counter attack following the new sanctions envisaged by the Trump administration.
The U.S. government could enact new restrictions against Huawei. The latest news is that Washington wants to prevent TSMC from burning modems and 5G SoCs for Huawei. By using legal tools, the United States wants to prohibit Huawei from collaborating with companies using American machines. Deprived of the Taiwanese smelter, Huawei will no longer be able to produce the SoC Kirin that power its smartphones.
The Trump administration is also considering lowering the threshold for U.S. intellectual property beyond which Huawei is not allowed to buy a 10% component or service. Currently, this threshold is still set at less than 25%. If the U.S. Department of Commerce can convince the Pentagon to approve the new sanctions, Huawei is expected to cross many components, including chipsets based on ARM licenses. Huawei quickly reacted to this arsenal of potential measures.
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China should ban U.S. technology, Huawei says
At a press conference dedicated to the presentation of the group's annual financial results, Eric Xu, Chairman of Huawei's Board of Directors, warned the United States. "The Chinese government will not just sit back and watch Huawei be shot on a cutting board. Why would the Chinese government not ban the use of 5G chips, modems, smartphones and other devices supplied by U.S. companies for cybersecurity reasons?" threat Eric Xu, clearly convinced that Beijing plans to react in the event of new U.S. restrictions. Several analysts reported by the Chinese national press agree.
In addition, Eric Xu assures that Huawei is quite capable of finding alternatives should its partnership with TSMC come to an end. "Huawei and other Chinese companies can choose to buy chips from Samsung in Korea, MTK from Taiwan and Unisoc in China, and use these companies to develop chipsets," the official said.
This is also the opinion of Doug Jacobson, a trade lawyer quoted by Reuters. According to him, Huawei will have no trouble "developing its own supply chain. In the past, Huawei has demonstrated a great capacity to adapt to U.S. sanctions. Deprived of Google's services, for example, the firm has urgently developed an international version of HMS (Huawei Mobile Services) to equip its smartphones. In the end, Washington's new measures are expected to be more damaging to the Chinese group's U.S. partners than to Huawei.
Source: Reuters