Huawei asks court to rule US security law unconstitutional

In this Monday, May 20, 2019, photo, shoppers visit a Huawei store in Beijing. Chinese tech giant Huawei has filed a motion in U.S. court challenging the constitutionality of a law that limits its sales of telecom equipment. (Ng Han Guan/Associated Press)

SHENZHEN, China — Fighting to maintain its access to major markets for next-generation communications, Chinese tech giant Huawei is challenging the constitutionality of a 2018 U.S. law that bars it from selling telecoms equipment to U.S. government agencies and contractors.

In a motion filed late Tuesday in eastern Texas federal court, Huawei argues for summary judgment in the case in filed in March against the U.S. government. It says the law violates a constitutional prohibition against “trial by legislature” of individual entities.

Congress thus acted unconstitutionally when it “adjudicated Huawei’s guilt and blacklisted it,” the motion argues.

The motion comes as the U.S. and China are embroiled in a broader trade war in which both sides have imposed billions of dollars of punitive tariffs against each other’s products. Chinese state media suggested Wednesday that the country’s rich supply of rare earths — key elements for high-tech manufacturing — could be used as leverage against the U.S. in the dispute.

Huawei is the biggest global maker of network equipment and enjoys a lead in 5G, or fifth-generation, technology. It also is the No. 2 maker of smartphones. The Trump administration says the company can be legally compelled to spy on behalf of the Chinese government and is thus a threat to international cybersecurity.

“This decision threatens to harm our customers in over 170 countries, including more than 3 billion customers who use Huawei products and services around the world,” Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said at a news briefing Wednesday.

Huawei, whose U.S. headquarters is in Plano, Texas, said in Tuesday’s motion that the U.S. national defense law that punishes it as an alleged agent of Beijing’s ruling Communist Party also violates its rights by presuming its guilt without a fair trial.

The summary judgment motion seeks to accelerate the legal process to give U.S. customers access to Huawei equipment sooner, Huawei said in a statement.

Song said the “state-sanctioned campaign” against the company will not improve cybersecurity.

“Politicians in the U.S. are using the strength of an entire nation to come after a private company,” he said. “This is not normal.”

But just because something might strike us as not quite fair or outright wrong doesn’t necessarily make it unconstitutional, said Steven Schwinn, a professor at John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

He said Huawei’s arguments, while strong on U.S. lawmakers’ punitive intent, fall short constitutionally.

Schwinn and other legal scholars aren’t sanguine about Huawei’s chances.

“Given that this relates to national security we can expect the courts to be fairly deferential to the government and we ought to think of that as the thumb on the scale in favor of the government in all of these claims,” he said.

The presiding judge has scheduled motions through Sept. 10 so Schwinn said it was unlikely the case would be dismissed before then.

Separately, the U.S. Commerce Department this month placed Huawei on its “Entity List,” effectively barring U.S. companies from selling their technology to it and other Chinese firms without government approval. Huawei relies heavily on U.S. components, including computer chips, and about one-third of its suppliers are American.

The backdrop is China’s longstanding huge trade surplus with the U.S. and complaints that Beijing and Chinese companies use unfair tactics to acquire advanced foreign technologies.

The most recent round of negotiations between Beijing and Washington ended earlier this month without an agreement after President Donald Trump more than doubled duties on $200 billion in Chinese products. China responded by raising tariffs of 5% to 25% on $60 billion worth of American goods.

Full story at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/huawei-asks-court-to-deem-us-security-law-unconstitutional/2019/05/29/db08812a-81c7-11e9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html

Check out the image at 24:00.

Who Owns Huawei? The Company Tried to Explain. It Got Complicated.

SHENZHEN, China — For one of the world’s largest technology companies, it should be a simple question:

Who owns Huawei?

As the Chinese smartphone and telecommunications equipment giant battles the United States government over whether it should be allowed to build the world’s mobile networks, the company has been going to great lengths to present itself as open, transparent and trustworthy.

It has not always worked out. One reason is that certain simple questions about Huawei do not have simple answers.

The chief secretary of Huawei’s board of directors, Jiang Xisheng, spoke for more than 90 minutes to a small group of reporters on Thursday. The goal was to help explain the company’s ownership after two American researchers wrote a report accusing Huawei of being misleading about the issue.

Mr. Jiang’s explanation boiled down to this: On paper, he said, Huawei is owned by a labor union that solicits donations from employees when their colleagues have health problems and the like. The union also supervises the company basketball club, Mr. Jiang said.

Naturally, it is a little more complicated than that.

Huawei’s ownership is a murky matter because the company has never, in more than three decades of existence, sold shares to the public. The firm says that it is entirely owned by its employees, and that no outside organizations, including any affiliated with the Chinese government, own shares.

But these assurances have never quite dispelled American officials’ suspicions that Beijing and the Communist Party are somehow pulling the strings. Top American officials have also been alarmed by new Chinese laws that require companies to assist in national intelligence work.

Huawei showed reporters on Thursday what it described as evidence of its independence: a big blue book, kept behind glass and under lock and key in a drab white room at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese city.

Within its 10 volumes are said to be the names of all the Huawei employees who hold “restricted phantom shares” in the company — proof, the company says, that no piece of Huawei is owned by the Chinese government.

This, too, is not as simple as it seems.

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/who-owns-huawei.html

Analysis: Who really owns Huawei?

Unravelling the structure of the world's fastest growing networking vendor.

While no direct ties between Huawei and the Chinese military and Communist Party have ever been established beyond CEO Ren Zhengfei's past ties to both, the fast-growing telco supplier's ownership structure is still fascinating, strange and tricky for Western observers to understand.

Huawei was founded in 1988 but remains a private company to this day, despite revenues of A$26.8 billion last year and a compound annual growth rate of 33 percent. 

Huawei staff are evasive when asked why the company hasn't listed.

"We will choose the most suitable model for Huawei at varied developmental stages," a company spokesman told iTnews.

One of China's richest men - with an estimated net worth of US$450 million - CEO Ren Zhengfei is content with a mere 1.42 percent of shares in Huawei.

The rest - some 98.56 per cent - is owned by employees, according to the company.

However, this arrangement is not as straightforward as it may sound. The employee shareholding scheme is implemented through the Union of Shenzhen Huawei Investment Holdings Co Ltd.

To further complicate matters, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd itself is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenzhen Huawei Investment & Holding Co Ltd.

According to a company spokesman, Huawei Holding is solely owned by employees of Huawei, without any third parties (including government bodies) holding any of its shares.

In other words, Huawei employees own both the company they work for, and the company that owns Huawei itself.

This convoluted ownership by the employees is controlled by the company's management.

Employees cannot buy shares, but are instead allocated shares annually on the basis of work performance, duties and capabilities for the position and on future development potential.

Huawei would not disclose how many shares any single employee can own. Dividends, however, are paid to employees, to complement Huawei's incentive scheme that includes performance bonuses and annual salary reviews.

The shares themselves are known by the Huawei internal term "Virtual Restricted Shares", but according the company spokesman, this is "just a technical name" for otherwise "normal" shares.

Only Chinese employees are allocated shares in Huawei.

"Huawei is headquartered in China and due to prevailing Chinese legal issues, overseas employees cannot, unfortunately, own shares," the spokesman said.

Presently, Huawei says that out of some 95,000 employees, 61,457 hold shares in the company.

Employees allocated shares have to return these when they leave Huawei's employ, according to the spokesman. The shares are bought back by the company at their current value, the company spokesman said, but he wasn't prepared to reveal how much each share is valued at currently.

"The stock ownership plan will help us attract and retain talent, and keeps employee benefits in line with company performance," the spokesman said.

The Union of the Shenzhen Huawei Investment and Holding Company is not a trade union, but a shareholders' one, according to the spokesman, and it appears to form the cornerstone of Huawei corporate governance.

This union "is the highest authority of the company".

A "small committee" of 33 union members are elected by other shareholders employed by Huawei to make decisions.

In turn, the committee elects nine candidates to the Huawei board that is appointed at the general annual shareholder meeting.

Huawei won't disclose who runs the Union of SHIH or who sits on the committee, but says it would consider establishing an independent board of directors "when the condition is permitting".

Judging from the present list of board members, they are highly ranked executives rather than shop floor employees. Apart from CEO Ren and chairwoman Sun Yafang, the other board members currently include:

Ms Ji Ping, Vice President

Mr Guo Ping, Executive Vice President

Mr Xu Wen Wei, Senior Vice President

Mr Hu Hou Kun, president of Global Strategy and Marketing

Mr Fei Min, President of Products and Solutions

Mr Hong Tian Feng, President of Operation and Delivery

Mr Xu Zhi Jun, Chief Marketing Officer

Huawei's ownership arrangements are "completely opaque" says David M Webb, an independent commentator on corporate and economic governance, based in Hong Kong.

"My guess is that the candidates for election are tightly controlled - it's not like an employee can just run for election with the support of his colleagues."

Webb said it is not clear there is any capital gains earned when an employee leaves Huawei.

He suspects that the shares are simply a profit-sharing mechanism. Shares in the bonus pool or "dividends" are allocated and withdrawn at management discretion, and probably do not carry any equity value, he said.

According to Webb, the "employee-owned" structure appears to be an attempt at distancing Huawei from its PLA (People's Liberation Army) roots.

"Huawei does business in a sensitive sector because its equipment is at the heart of telecommunications networks," Webb said.

"It is easy for opponents to suggest that Huawei, the PLA, or the Chinese government might be able to intercept communications or remotely cripple networks, regardless of it being true or not," says Webb.

"Unless and until Huawei becomes a stand-alone widely held listed company with employees free to trade their shares and without a controlling shareholder, these suspicions and allegations will likely continue," he said.

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/analysis-who-really-owns-huawei-175946

Fret not, Huawei builds its own chip factory in Cambridge to counter Arm blow!!!!!!!

https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/hi-tech/huawei-builds-its-own-chip-factory-cambridge-counter-arm-blow

Isn't ARM owned by Softbank? Now even the Japanese want to fuck the tiongs in the ass, bravo.

If Huawei Loses ARM's Chip Designs, It's Toast

HOW DO YOU kill a company? The answer, in the context of Chinese electronics giant Huawei, appears to be deprivation, removing ready access to the elements that distinguish smartphones from very expensive chunks of anodized aluminum and glass. The latest blow: Chip designer ARM has reportedly severed ties with the company. Huawei could arguably survive without Google. Without ARM? Not so much.

It’s important to clarify that nothing at this point is certain, or permanent. The BBC first reported ARM’s move Wednesday morning, citing an internal memo that noted ARM’s use of "US origin technology,” which makes it subject to a sweeping ban put in place by the Trump administration. ARM finally confirmed the ban Wednesday afternoon. As it did with Google, though, the US Commerce Department could grant a waiver that allows ARM to continue servicing Huawei. And broader tensions between China and the US could otherwise resolve, potentially taking some of the pressure off Huawei.

But if those caveats don’t come through? It’s hard to see where Huawei goes from here.

ARM Wrestling

Even if you’ve never heard of ARM, you interact with its technologies every day. The company makes the designs that manufacturers like Qualcomm use to produce chips. ARM-based CPUs power everything from smartphones to Internet of Things devices to, more recently, data centers.

ARM’s ubiquity also has increasingly let smartphone companies produce their own chips, in a bid to wean themselves off of Qualcomm and create purpose-built processors. Huawei was an early ARM acolyte; its subsidiary, HiSilicon, has made ARM-based systems-on-chips since at least 2012.

Conventional wisdom to this point had been that Huawei’s CPU self-reliance would be an important factor in fending off US offenses. Even if Google cuts ties—which it did, until receiving that 90-day waiver—Huawei could still create a functional operating system by creating a so-called Android fork, and convincing developers to tailor their apps to Huawei’s modified version. Huawei customers would have to live without the Google Play Store and related apps, but those felt lik solvable problems, especially in a Chinese market that already has plenty of available alternatives.

But the open-source version of Android is designed for ARM-based chips. It also works on x86 processors, made by Intel, AMD, and others, but those US-based companies had already cut ties with Huawei as part of the sanctions. Which means, absent ARM, Huawei’s most obvious backup plan effectively goes poof. The company would need not only to redesign its own chips from scratch—a process that takes years—it would find itself cut off from the world’s most popular operating system. This is like telling Coca-Cola that it can’t use carbonated water.

"All of the options are going to be painful,” says Eric Hanselman, chief analyst at 451 Research. “Changing out a core means you’ve got to do significant work not only in the silicon, but also in your software ecosystem. That’s not going to be simple.”

A Slow Fade

Losing access to ARM won’t cripple Huawei overnight, even in a worst-case scenario. The electronics giant will still be able to use its current, licensed technology, which means that it can continue to package any chips already in play. Mobile processors generally receive annual bumps; Huawei introduced its Kirin 980 SoC last fall, and it would have continued to ship it for the next several months regardless.

But going forward, if the ban holds up, Huawei handsets will become frozen in time. The BBC reports that its upcoming chip, the Kirin 985, may have snuck in under the wire, but after that the company will be stuck on the latest and greatest ARM designs as of May 22, 2019. To become unstuck, it will need to embark on the costly, time-intensive process of designing its own core. The question is whether customers will bother to wait it out.

The damage would also extend far beyond smartphones. “Every place where Huawei uses ARM IP would be impacted,” says Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights & Strategy, “all the way from embedded IP in tiny surveillance devices to large enterprise data center chips.”

This is like telling Coca-Cola that it can’t use carbonated water.​

What remains unclear, and could make the difference between devastation and inconvenience, is exactly which ARM technologies are impacted. It’s an international company, recently acquired by Japanese giant Softbank but with headquarters still in the UK. Huawei’s fate may hang in the balance of whatever slice of ARM’s offerings originated in the US, where the company has eight offices and a long-running research partnership with the University of Michigan.

“If it is some of the system-on-chip capabilities, if it’s some of the architecture extensions, things like that, the resolution could be relatively simple. You just design that technology out,” says Hanselman. “If it happens to be core instruction set, or core logic, then that would be a whole lot more difficult.”

“ARM is complying with all of the latest regulations set forth by the US government,” the company said in a statement. "ARM values its relationship with our longtime partner HiSilicon and we are hopeful for a swift resolution on this matter," it added in a follow-up statement several hours later. "Under the current restrictions ARM cannot license any export-restrictive IP to HiSilicon."

Under Siege

Huawei has reportedly been stockpiling US-made parts for as long as a year, in anticipation of the current crackdown. But the ARM move potentially obviates that preparation, by limiting the extent to which Huawei can go it alone.

"Huawei values its relationships with all partners around the world and understands the difficult situation they are in," the company said in a statement. "Our top priority remains to continue delivering world-class products to our customers. We are hopeful this situation will be resolved and are working to find the best solution."

It also underscores the stakes that the US has established. The Trump administration had previously brought Chinese tech company ZTE to the brink of collapse, but that imbroglio centered on specific deals ZTE made with Iran and North Korea, for which it offered specific remedies in the form of fines and a leadership overhaul. The Huawei tensions are much more amorphous; the White House has labeled it a national security threat without specifying why or how, leaving no clear path for resolution. Other companies seem likely to face a similar fate; The New York Timesreported Tuesday that the US may blacklist Chinese surveillance company Hikvision over its role in oppressing the country's Uyghur population.

And while there’s always a chance that a 90-day waiver for ARM will come through, as it did with Google, it won’t be a given. “License requests involving Huawei or its affiliates will be reviewed under a presumption of denial,” a Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement.

There are ways for Huawei to survive without ARM. But in the ongoing siege of one of China’s most important companies, the US has unquestionably cut off its most important supply route.

https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-loses-arm-chip-design/

Buy P30 dirt cheap in Sinkieland, offload at high prices in Tiongland, huat big big ar!!!!!!!!!

Caveat Emptor

When the P30 was released, Trump already bared his fangs against Huawei, except back then he hasn't taken concrete action yet. A critical thinker would have foreseen this and stay away from buying it, period.

No wonder Sinkies can't do business, they absolutely lack foresight.

Mobile phone shops stop buying Huawei phones from customers; anxiety sets in for existing users

SINGAPORE — Just a day after Google suspended its business with Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei amid escalating United States-China trade tensions, mobile phone shops in Singapore have stopped buying used Huawei phones from customers.

The reason for this change? The shops are concerned that they would not make a profit as these used Huawei phones may no longer command high prices — and there may be no takers anyway, they said. 

Due to the dip in demand, some retailers have even stopped stocking up new Huawei phones. They said that the sidelining of these products will continue until further notice, depending on how the situation plays out.

For customers, anxiety has set in. Worried that they might not be able to access Google applications such as YouTube, Maps and Gmail, some have tried to sell their Huawei phones to stores, only to be turned down, mobile phone shops told TODAY.

Turning to social media, some users have vented their anger, demanding a replacement phone or a refund from telecommunications companies.

In response to TODAY’s queries, telcos StarHub and Singtel acknowledged the frustrations, with Singtel saying that it is working with Huawei “to get more clarity”.

On Sunday, the US’ decision to place Huawei on its trade blacklist led Google to suspend business with Huawei, China’s largest tech firm, in matters relating to the transfer of hardware, software and technical services. 

Google, however, had sought to allay concerns. It assured existing Huawei users not residing in China that they would still be able to access and update the apps on Google Play Store, such as YouTube, Maps and Gmail. 

Still, Huawei users in Singapore who were interviewed by TODAY are thinking that there may be more restrictions on the use of Google’s proprietary apps and services, depending on how the US-China trade war plays out.

Mr Nicholas Tan, a 30-year-old music teacher, is worried that Google might “break relations” with Huawei, which would eventually mean restricting existing Huawei users from accessing Google’s apps.

Echoing a similar sentiment, 29-year-old photographer Matthew Lim said that not being able to access Google Maps, which he relies on frequently for navigation, would leave him handicapped in a way. “That would be a serious issue,” he added.

More at https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/mobile-phone-shops-stop-buying-huawei-phones-customers-anxiety-sets-existing-users

Congratulations to Dotard who will probably go down in the annals of history as the most villainous American president ever. In merely 3 years he has managed to create half a century's worth of chaos.

Huawei’s phone business would be decimated without Google’s Android

There’s no possible upbeat scenario

Huawei P30 Pro. Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

The news from Sunday night that Google would be complying with a US government edict and suspending business with Huawei is one of the most dramatic moments in Android’s history. Huawei, China’s most prolific smartphone vendor, had started 2019 with explosive double-digit growth and was on a path to eclipse Samsung as the world’s number one phone maker by the year’s end. Without Google’s Android support, however, that’s simply not going to happen — not in 2019 or 2020 or any other date in the future.

Whether this proves to be the most consequential moment in Android’s history has yet to be determined. This could all be just a short-lived scare tactic from a Trump administration trying to demonstrate to the Chinese government its willingness to take drastic measures. Or Huawei might be left on the US blacklist indefinitely, spawning a wide variety of potential scenarios, none of which bode well for the company’s future as a smartphone vendor.

As things stand, Huawei is losing its licensing agreement with Google for the provision of Google Play Services and access to the Google Play Store on new Huawei Android devices. Existing customers won’t be affected, though without Google resuming business with Huawei, they also won’t get any further Android OS updates. (Honor, Huawei’s wholly owned subsidiary, looks to be subject to the same fate). This is devastating to Huawei’s hopes of selling any smartphones outside of China.

Huawei still has the option to use the open-source variety of Android, but Google has been gradually whittling all of the attractive components away from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The genuine full-fat Android experience of today — featuring Google Maps, YouTube, and, most crucially, the full ecosystem of third-party Android apps — is dependent on Google’s licensing assent. Deprived of Google’s software, Huawei would be selling featherless chickens to smartphone buyers used to having Play Store access. In Europe, even the finest hardware wouldn’t convince consumers to buy a phone without an app ecosystem. Google wields enormous market power through its Play Store, significant enough for the European Commission to conduct an antitrust investigation.

In its native China, Huawei already operates without the Play Store, owing to Google’s absence from the market. But even there, Huawei would suffer from not having a close working relationship with Google. All of its fellow Chinese rivals would get earlier access to the next version of Android while Huawei would have to wait for the AOSP code to be made available to the public. The Chinese consumer is probably the least sensitive to operating system updates and upgrades, given how WeChat has evolved to be an OS and ecosystem atop Android, but Huawei would still be at a disadvantage in one of the world’s most competitive phone markets.

There’s no positive spin to this situation for Huawei. Trying to sell smartphones without Google’s cooperation in the modern age is a spectrum that goes from bad to disastrous. Windows Phone, Palm OS, MeeGo, Symbian, Bada (later Tizen), and BlackBerry OS are just a few of the mobile OS corpses that Android’s rise has produced. App-less operating systems simply do not stand a chance against the contemporary iOS-Android duopoly.

Putting a brave face on the situation, Huawei’s official response has been to underline its contributions to the global popularity of Android, reassure current Huawei and Honor phone owners that they’ll continue receiving security updates, and promise to “continue to build a safe and sustainable software ecosystem.” Notably, there’s no mention of Android in the closing of Huawei’s remarks.

Huawei has been aware of the possibility of hostile action from the US government for years, and its consumer division boss Richard Yu recently disclosed that it’s developed its own alternatives to Android and Windows. On the mobile front, that could be a fork of the AOSP flavor of Android or an entirely new operating system, built up from scratch. In both cases, Huawei would have a mighty struggle to convince any app developers to build apps for its separate platform. If Amazon, with all its clout and influence, couldn’t do it for the Amazon Appstore on Android, Huawei stands even less of a chance. Rational app developers are hardly going to flock to a new platform that’s born of adversity and thrust into a maelstrom of political conflict.

Full story at https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632266/huawei-android-google-ban-phone-business-future

My forecast: China's yuan (renminbi) might dip below US$1 = 7 RMB. And possibly go even lower.

Expect a lot of money to flow out of China. Some of the escapees might arrive in Sinkieland. ;)

Heng ah......I am loyal to Apple. Long live Apple!

If the Chinese were genuinely powerful and influential they would have developed their own operating systems for their products a long while ago and force the rest of the world to pursue their software technologies.

The answer is obvious. The Chinks have neither the brains nor temperament to come up with winners on their own. All they are good at are copying and stealing the ideas of others.

Can't wait for the China-led third ecosystem to challenge the Apple-Android duopoly. Microsoft tried to do that by acquiring Nokia but still failed, not forgetting their cake leng CEO simply just gave up on Windows phones altogether, upsetting a lot of Microsoft fanboys in the process.

Intel, Qualcomm, and other chipmakers reportedly join Google in Huawei ban

Huawei has been stockpiling chips to prepare for this eventuality

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Huawei’s bad weekend is turning worse as the company’s American suppliers are all falling in line with a US government edict banning them from doing business with the company. Bloomberg now reports that Intel, Qualcomm, and Broadcom, three of the world’s leading chip designers and suppliers, are cutting off their dealings with Huawei, effective immediately. Nikkei reports that German chipmaker Infineon Technologies has also suspended shipments to Huawei, as have US memory chip makers Micron Technology and Western Digital.

The chip suspensions follow the earlier news of Google abruptly rescinding Huawei’s Android license and halting its access to Google Play Services and the Play Store, effectively dumping it out of the Android smartphone market and forcing the Chinese company to develop its own version atop the barebone open-source edition of Android.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, employees across the major US chipmakers have been informed that their companies will freeze their supply deals with Huawei until further notice. Intel provides Huawei with server chips and the processors for its laptop line, while Qualcomm figures less prominently in providing modems and other processors. Huawei’s actually quite well insulated from the Qualcomm impact, as it builds its own mobile processors and modems. Another Bloomberg report suggests Huawei has also been preparing for this eventuality by stockpiling chips from US suppliers to last it at least three months, which should be enough time to tell if the current measure is a scare tactic or a permanent imposition from the US government.

Nikkei’s sources suggest that Europe might be falling into line as well. “Infineon decided to adopt a more cautious measure and stopped the shipment. But it will hold meetings this week to discuss [the situation] and make assessments,” said one source speaking to Nikkei. European chipmaker ST Microelectronics is reportedly discussing its continued shipments to Huawei this week as well.

Huawei has been developing in-house alternatives to Android and Windows, specifically to try and address a situation such as the present one. Microsoft hasn’t yet commented on whether it will continue to provide the Windows operating system for Huawei laptops, but odds are that it too will respect the US government’s orders.

The effort by the US government to sideline Huawei has been going for a long time, and the company was last year unceremoniously rebuffed in its effort to enter the US phone market. The current escalation is part of an increasingly hostile trade dispute between the Trump administration and the Chinese government, with the former trying to force a renegotiation of the trading relationship between the two.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/19/18632075/intel-qualcomm-huawei-ban-us-chipmakers-report

Huawei responds to Android ban

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge

Fresh off the sledgehammer blow of having its Android license revoked by Google in response to US government demands, Huawei has issued its first, limited response, which leaves more questions open than it answers. In a statement emailed to The Verge, Huawei underscores its contributions to the growth of Android globally — which most recently saw the company’s Android phone sales growing by double digits while every other leading smartphone vendor was shrinking or stagnant — and reassures current owners of Huawei and (subsidiary brand) Honor phones that they will continue to receive security updates and after-sales service. That promise also covers phones that are already shipped and in stock at stores globally, but no additional promises are made beyond that.

Google has already said that owners of Huawei phones will retain their access to the Play Store and continue being able to update their apps. The big thing that’s being written out of their future, however, are further Android OS updates from Google. To get those back, Huawei phone owners and fans will have to hope for a resolution in the US-China trade dispute, which has been the trigger for Huawei’s current blacklisting by the US government.

For its part, Huawei has been making preparations for an eventuality of losing access to software from US companies like Google and Microsoft, and it has been developing an in-house operating system alternative to Android. That may be what the company hints at in the final paragraph of its statement when it says it will “continue to build a safe and sustainable software ecosystem.” Sustainable being the key word.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632234/huawei-android-ban-response-google-security-updates