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Opinion | The US war on Huawei not only reeks of double standards but is also killing the free market
- By using private companies to further the US’ geopolitical aims, the Trump administration is doing what it fears China will use Huawei to do
- Moreover, forcing US tech firms to act against their commercial interests violates free market principles
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“We live in interesting times,” said US senator Robert F Kennedy in a speech in 1966, alluding to the apocryphal Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”.
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Today’s interesting times do not just encompass the trade war but also a Chinese company, which now joins the likes of Iran and North Korea on the US’ list of its top enemies.
Huawei became America’s boogeyman not only because of its emerging leadership in the global telecommunications industry, especially in 5G technology, but also because of US intelligence agencies’ dread of its possible connections to the Chinese government and the Communist Party.
The Huawei saga culminated two weeks ago in US President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the use of foreign-made telecommunications equipment that might harm US national security, followed by the Department of Commerce’s decision to add the Chinese giant to the “Entity List”, which restricts the sale of US equipment and software to it.
It didn’t take long for the onslaught against Huawei to begin: Google cut off Huawei’s Android licence, Intel and Qualcomm suspended their sales to the company and even non-US companies, like chip designer ARM, froze their business ties with it.
While this could have left Huawei stranded without an operating system and enough microchips, the Chinese company had acquired stockpiles of microchips anticipating a possible crackdown, similar to the one against ZTE, and is relying for the moment on the open-source Android system.
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