Huawei Export Licenses Could be Revoked by US (wsj.com) 24
The Biden administration is considering revoking export licenses issued to U.S. suppliers for sales to Chinese telecom company Huawei, WSJ reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, part of a broader tightening of technology trade over national security concerns. From a report: The administration previously indicated that it was considering not granting any new export licenses to companies such as Qualcomm and Intel, which provide chips needed for smartphones and other devices. The action would cover products that use advanced 5G technology as well as older 4G products. The new action would take that a step further by revoking existing licenses. It comes amid heightened U.S.-China tensions triggered by a suspected Chinese spy balloon traversing the U.S. and intelligence suggesting Beijing is considering provision of lethal aid to Russia for its Ukraine war.
"The policy that had allowed exports to Huawei, notwithstanding the entity listing, is being wound down," said a former senior security official familiar with the administration's policy deliberations. "The White House is now telling Commerce, 'Cut off the 4G sales, the time has come to do more pain to Huawei, to try to finish their demise,'" the former official said. Huawei was placed on the Commerce Department's so-called entity list in 2019 by the office that oversees export controls, the Bureau of Industry and Security. The BIS cited potential national-security threats when it issued the punitive listing, which requires exporters to secure special licenses approving the sale of U.S. technology to the firm. U.S. officials say they are concerned China's government could use Huawei's telecommunications tech for spying.
"The policy that had allowed exports to Huawei, notwithstanding the entity listing, is being wound down," said a former senior security official familiar with the administration's policy deliberations. "The White House is now telling Commerce, 'Cut off the 4G sales, the time has come to do more pain to Huawei, to try to finish their demise,'" the former official said. Huawei was placed on the Commerce Department's so-called entity list in 2019 by the office that oversees export controls, the Bureau of Industry and Security. The BIS cited potential national-security threats when it issued the punitive listing, which requires exporters to secure special licenses approving the sale of U.S. technology to the firm. U.S. officials say they are concerned China's government could use Huawei's telecommunications tech for spying.
that's not gonna work as they think it will (Score:2)
Huawei makes their own chips from reverse engineering the qualcomm chips in 3...2...1...
Re:that's not gonna work as they think it will (Score:5, Interesting)
Huawei already makes their own chips.
Qualcomm licences the 5G technology from Huawei, who invented it. This is uncharted territory because normally any patents that are part of a standard like 5G have to be licenced under RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory terms). Typically companies don't pay anything, they agree to licence each others patents. If Qualcomm is prevented from licencing Huawei patents, or vice versa, by law... Well it's not Huawei's fault, and they would be entitled to seek to enforce their patents in every country where Qualcomm hardware is sold.
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Re:that's not gonna work as they think it will (Score:4, Informative)
Huawei already makes their own chips.
Qualcomm licences the 5G technology from Huawei, who invented it. This is uncharted territory because normally any patents that are part of a standard like 5G have to be licenced under RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory terms). Typically companies don't pay anything, they agree to licence each others patents. If Qualcomm is prevented from licencing Huawei patents, or vice versa, by law... Well it's not Huawei's fault, and they would be entitled to seek to enforce their patents in every country where Qualcomm hardware is sold.
Do not worry, there are express dispositions in the Executive order to allow for companies to work with Huawei in standards bodies, including 4G, 5G and the nascent 6G, as well as for licensing patents.
And to clarify to the rest of the people reading:
Qualcomm licenses 4G and 5G patents from Huawei under FRAND tertms, but Huawei also Licenses 4G and 5G patents from Qualcomm (under FRAND terms), and both of them license 4G and 5G patents from Nokia (not the HMD/Nokia that makes phones, but the Nokia/Siemenns/Alcatel-Lucent/Motorola that makes telco equipment) under FRAND terms, and all of them license 4G and 5G patens from Ericsson, and ZTE, Samsung, and many, many others....
So, long story short, in 4G and 5G, everybody pools their patents together under FRAND terms, and every body licenses patents from everybody else under FRAND terms.
Way too many companies have fingers in the 4G and 5G FRAND pies, and everybody benefits.
Some are net payers, some are net collectors, but most of the big-uns both license and pay for others patents and collet FRAND royalties for patents they do own.
PS: If a patented technology ends up in standards like 4G, 5G and 6G, it HAS to be licensed under FRAND terms. The two mains reasons why companies vie for their patetnted technology to end up in the standard are:
1.) FRAND royalties are a nice pasive income source (requires less upkeep than litigating left right and center, and they WILL be used).
2.) Since you have more experience with your patented technology than everyone else, having it go into the standard gives you a leg up on your competitors
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It should also be noted
1) Huawei is way ahead of most of the others in RAN tech. The US has never had a useable mobile network. I've been to "developing nations" that lack reliable water and sewage that have better coverage (Greece for example) so the US doesn't care if they're blocked from Huawei RAN tech
2) China can produce 5G modems, even NR internally. Modem chips are small.
Re:that's not gonna work as they think it will (Score:4, Interesting)
What fab will they use to actually produce them? Even if they could produce them, they'd only be able to sell them domestically or in a few other rogue states.
Re:that's not gonna work as they think it will (Score:5, Informative)
What fab will they use to actually produce them? Even if they could produce them, they'd only be able to sell them domestically or in a few other rogue states.
SMIC (the biggest and most advanced chinese Fab) has a very efficent 14nm process, and also has a highly inneficient (not in terms of yield, but in therms of steps) 7nm process.
While not enough for Advanced microprocessosr or GPUs, this is enough for telecom Chips (ASICS, FPGAs, analog high power RF circuits) which is the meat and potatoes of Huawei's Revenues and profits; and also for non flagship Smartphones (the tablescraps of the operation), that the press and populace is fixated on.
https://www.tomshardware.com/n... [tomshardware.com]
And pretty much all SE asia, all of africa, all of LatAm, and all the middle east are potential customers... As a mater of fact, all of those are customers NOW.
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But will those markets be enough to prevent Huawei from imploding?
TLDR; Yes.
Longer answer:
Yes, but Huawei will reduce itself to something the size of Samsung's telco division (the division that makes 4G and 5G base stations). It will not preserve Huawei's current status as one of the top 3.
PS: The top four are Ericsson, Nokia (not HMD/Nokia the phonemaker, rather Nokia/Siemens/Alcatel-Lucent/Motorola, the Telco one), Huawei (the Telco part), trading blows, and the ethernal fourth, ZTE.
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Some of those rogue states include western Europe, who are not matching US sanctions line by line. You can still buy Huawei made gear here, thankfully. Their phones are fairly popular.
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Some of those rogue states include western Europe, who are not matching US sanctions line by line. You can still buy Huawei made gear here, thankfully. Their phones are fairly popular.
As I said, the smartphones are the table scraps of Huawei's operation. The meat and potatoes of the operation is the Telco gear, and many big countries in Western europe decided to Rip Huawei gear out of their networks.
HAving said that, yes, Huawei will survive with those "rogue" markets, it will shrink a little, but they'll survive
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Reality was modded flamebait.
Short term / long term... (Score:2, Insightful)
Short term - Huawei and others will be pinched due to lack of chips / technology.
Long term - we will be whomped by Chinese developed technology.
Reasoning - Due to the myopic pressure from stockholders US/EU based companies (e.g. Intel, Qualcomm, etc.) will waste the short term profits gained due to lack of competition by Huawei (and others). Stock buybacks, executive spending, etc.
The Chinese will pour resources into this space, along with may others - chip making, batteries, solar cells, etc. advancing th
Not at all subtle. (Score:2, Interesting)
If the Biden administration wanted to be subtle, they should wait until said licenses lapsed, and then not renew them. If you ever had to work with SE Asian people, and chinese in particular, you would know that these type of nuances/subtleties matter a lot .
Maybe the administration does not know this, or know but do not care, or maybe they DO know, and want to send a particular message with this lack of subtlety...
But the most likely explanation, is that there is an internal strugle between the power fact
It's a shot across the bow (Score:5, Insightful)
If you haven't kept up on your Russian invasion news, there are very strong rumors that China will be supplying Russia with arms and other things, including drones now that Russia's supply of the Iranian ones are nearly depleted.
Basically it's a big shot across China's bow. China has so far remained "neutral" in the conflict - trying to be a low-key supplier in the conflict by buying up discounted oil and all that.
But if the rumors go through and China becomes a primary supplier, things are really going to hurt. China is assuming they're "too big to fail" in being able to supply Russia without consequences and make lots of money, while at the same time supplying the west with their cheap goods. It's basically warning that sanctions may be coming if China decides to side with Russia and why those who are geopolitically aware have been trying to move their supply chains out of China.
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If you haven't kept up on your Russian invasion news, there are very strong rumors that China will be supplying Russia with arms and other things, including drones now that Russia's supply of the Iranian ones are nearly depleted.
Basically it's a big shot across China's bow. China has so far remained "neutral" in the conflict - trying to be a low-key supplier in the conflict by buying up discounted oil and all that.
But if the rumors go through and China becomes a primary supplier, things are really going to hurt. China is assuming they're "too big to fail" in being able to supply Russia without consequences and make lots of money, while at the same time supplying the west with their cheap goods. It's basically warning that sanctions may be coming if China decides to side with Russia
Agree 100% with you.
And why those who are geopolitically aware have been trying to move their supply chains out of China.
Again, Agree 100% with you. But I have something to add.
Those who are geopolitically aware and are moving their supply chains outside of china are repeating the same mistakes of the past. Say you are an USoAn company, and for geopolitical reasons are moving your supply chain away from China. Where you go? They are going to India Only, to Vietnam Only... repeating the mistake of being dependant on a single country/region. When things go belly up in that country/region, you will scramble (
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Those who are geopolitically aware and are moving their supply chains outside of china are repeating the same mistakes of the past.
Some of them, yes. Some of them, no. Moving production to China meant supporting the USA's only credible adversary. Moving it literally anywhere else is not repeating that mistake.
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Vietnam especially who is really on the rise and happy to take on production for any companies looking to get out of China (they are no ally of China to say the least).
Much like Germany and Japan are very strong allies today despite being adversaries Vietnam is actually quite friendly and aligned with US interests. They've seen a sharp increase in GDP, GDP-per-capita and their economy in general since doing a good round of liberalizing it.
Would I prefer companies move more of that back to the domestic US?
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Those who are geopolitically aware and are moving their supply chains outside of china are repeating the same mistakes of the past.
Some of them, yes. Some of them, no. Moving production to China meant supporting the USA's only credible adversary. Moving it literally anywhere else is not repeating that mistake.
Actually, the mistake is concentrating production in one country. The matter of if said country is allied or enemy is a secondary matter.
Let's use an hipotetical example. You are apple, and you decide that geopolitical tensions in china are bad for business, so you move 100% of your production from China to India. Then, a few lustres latter, india (an USoA ally) goes to war with pakistan (another USoA ally); or pakistan goes to war with india... geopolitics fucked you again!
Or, let's say apple goes from 100
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If a company is serious about being geopolitically resilient, and have the scale , it should base its supply chain in multiple countries. My suggestions would be: Mexico, Brazil, India, China
The reality is that some places will be slightly more efficient, e.g. maybe China the best, India 2% less efficient, Mexico and Brazil 3% less efficient (after transportation costs are factored in). So you the "seriously resilient company" will be producing our goods a touch worse than your competitors. And earnings reports go out, and maybe your stock will fall depending on whether investors want to make money on their stock investments over a 1-year window or 20-year window. Maybe your stock drops low eno
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I'd be surprised if China did decide to arm Russia. What would they gain from it? A few arms sales that aren't going to turn the tide for Russia, and a whole lot of hurt when it inevitably comes to light. It's not as if China needs the money, unlike Iran.
There's also the national security angle. China won't want to share advanced weapons systems, and much of what they have is superior to the crap the Russian military uses.
If anything China has been working hard to detach itself from Russia. While initially
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aren't going to turn the tide for Russia
I agree with you on the whole but on this point they may truly believe it can, especially a chance to put their own arms up against NATO/US arms. That may be a motivating factor to supply Russia with some of their modern kit, it's a real proxy war at that point. The payoff is a Russia that is both emboldened and also in China's pocket even further.
I agree from where you and I sit it's very risky and an obvious blunder but much like launching an invasion of Taiwan what makes little sense to us may not be h
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I'd be surprised if China did decide to arm Russia. What would they gain from it? A few arms sales that aren't going to turn the tide for Russia, and a whole lot of hurt when it inevitably comes to light. It's not as if China needs the money, unlike Iran.
There's also the national security angle. China won't want to share advanced weapons systems, and much of what they have is superior to the crap the Russian military uses.
If anything China has been working hard to detach itself from Russia. While initially they did buy things like Russian aircraft and space tech, they made sure that they developed their own domestic stuff to replace it as soon as possible.
I agree 100% with you. I'd also be surprised if China sold weapons to russia. But then again, weirder things have been seen.
North Korea is selling weapons to russia (specially artillery shells)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
And seems to be in line for reconstruction efforts in the russian territories once the war stops.... (supplying migrant construction workers, a-la Quatar).
But, the most likely scenario is:
China leaks a false info that they may arm russia.
USoA leaks a false info that they will tighten
uhm.... (Score:2)
And the Huawei revokes licenses of 5G patents they own so Quallcomm and Intel can't use the technology at all.
US should really get their heads out of their asses as the technology they use themselves are also riddled with patents from other countries including China. If the US is revoking those export licenses, then Huawei(/China) could revoke all patent licenses to US companies. And then maybe the US might go for trying to invalidate those patents so they can use/export stuff using them, but then China cou