The issues between the United States and China are here to stay. To be honest, we don’t know when and how it will ever end. There are far too many things to discuss. From our standpoint, we’ll just have to wait and see how the Trump administration will end the trade ban or just make adjustments. It’s been a long journey since the time when Google decided to cut ties with Huawei. Other American firms soon followed. Some restrictions have been eased but over a year later, companies based in the US still need to get a license if they are to do business with Huawei.
A month ago, the drama has started again as the US was believed to be proposing to block chip suppliers from Huawei. We reported China could retaliate against US companies over continuing the Huawei ban. The US government was expected to remove Huawei from the list of global chip suppliers.
Huawei has started to look for alternative suppliers and technology. TSMC stopped getting orders from the top Chinese OEM and said it can still survive even without business with Huawei.
There was talk before that the American government would require licenses from firms that use US tech and sell to Huawei. It’s quite obvious the US wants to stop anything that has to do with Huawei over privacy and security issues. Now we’re learning that American companies can now work with Huawei on 5G and other standards.
So this is a twist to the already crazy story. The US government is expected to amend prohibitions on American companies that have business with Huawei. This move is to allow them to work on 5G and other related technologies.
The US Commerce Department has an entity list. Those companies included there are restricted in doing sales or business with American companies. The change in the rule may mean the US is weakening its stand but it’s really for the other companies and Huawei to work on 5G without any problem.
We’re looking forward to more related announcements. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with some Chinese officials to discuss a lot of things. That’s only a rumor so take things with a pinch of salt.
