United States vs. China: Huawei, the mother of all battles | The United States’ hegemonic dispute with China to lead 5G telecommunications technology

The failures of global geopolitics are played out on many chessboards. In one of them challenges leadership in telecommunications, where the new global oil circulates: The data. One of the tiles on this board is Huawei, founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei. Since its creation, the company has supported the impressive development of China in technology. Far from this imagination which saw China as a factory of bad copies of Western products, it now challenges leadership in areas of great sensitivity such as artificial intelligence and telecommunications.

In recent years, Huawei has raised awareness for various reasons. The principal, for having directed the 5G development, a fundamental technology to increase the connection capacity of mobile phones hundreds of times compared to 4G. Historically, Americans and Europeans have dominated these markets.

Huawei made the headlines in the non-specialist media when, in May 2019, the then President of the United States, Donald trump, signed an executive decree prohibiting companies in his country from doing business with certain Chinese companies for reasons of national security. One of the main targets was Huawei and even two Canadian citizens were arrested for allegedly spying for the company.

The United States They pressured their allies not to buy or even break the contracts they had with Huawei, as happened in the UK. In June of this year, the current president Joe Biden extended the order.

The first blow: the processors

In practice, this translates into a hard blow for the company, in particular because of the difficulty of not being able to count on suppliers of US subcontractors or Google services, necessary for the Android Huawei mobile phones. In 2018, the company was second in the global cellphone market, but fell 40% in the following months.

Despite everything, the crisis also appears as an opportunity for a company capable of develop your own processors or a new operating system. Thus, the US coup, far from turning into a downfall for China, could translate into a push to achieve even more technological autonomy.

Huawei, which wants to continue doing business, finds itself in the middle of a geopolitical dispute that goes beyond it: “From Huawei we are not very clear the motivations of the United States to do that”, he explains. Juan Bonora, vice president of Huawei Technologies Argentina, in an exclusive report to Cash.

To add that “yes we can understand that has to do with this geopolitical war between the United States and China. We can also read in most of their communications that it has to do, according to them, with national security. Corn they talk about a national security threatened because of Huawei without providing a single proof, because the reality is that they do not exist “.

Bonara, telecommunications specialist and graduate of the University of San Andrés, points out that “I find the comment he made very interesting. the Argentine Ambassador to China, Sabino Vaca NarvajaIn an interview where he mentions that it is very striking that previous technologies, from 1G to 4G, were not discussed in the media, no one asked who the technology providers were. In this case, in which a Chinese company is leading the development of 5G, the United States is taking the floor. “

– Now, there is a lot of talk about Huawei in Argentina but they have been in the country for several years.

– Huawei has been in Argentina since 2001, which means this year we are celebrating twenty years. We focus on providing networks for communication operators such as Telecom, Telefónica, Claro or ARSAT, also including Telecentro, Supercanal. We also have other business units for supplying networks to companies such as supermarket chain, oil company and municipal and provincial governments at national level. We also have an alternative energy business unit and a cloud services unit.

– Does Huawei face extra-economic problems in Argentina when it offers its products and services?

– Huawei arrives in Argentina in a very special year, when there were companies leaving. We, with our long-term vision, decided to invest in the country and today we already have more than 500 employees. In terms of the definition of technology, each operator has always freely chosen who is the supplier of the technology and this is obviously linked to his expertise. From the first communication technology of 1G until today, with 5G, they are the experts in defining why they choose one manufacturer or another taking into account the security of the networks, the services offered, the advanced technology and, of course, with commercial issues such as price, financing, support.

The key to the battle

– Why is 5G so sensitive?

– All communication technologies must be considered sensitive. We have an internal slogan that translates to: “Don’t assume anything, don’t believe in anyone, check everything.” But we’re not just doing it for 5G. This covers all the products we sell. At Huawei, the department in charge of data security and personal data protection reports directly to the board of directors and they always have a veto right for a product launch. This begs the question of why some countries have raised the issue of 5G with the public but haven’t done the same with 4G or 3G or WiFi. If you ask them that, they will say it because 5G will be present in almost everything. But the truth is, since 2G there is a lot of stuff connected.

– Either way, 5G is causing more security-related tensions.

– Huawei has always taken these issues into account and it allows us to say with pride that in almost 40 years of company life, we have not had any serious cases related to data security or data protection. personal data. Recent cases of cyberattacks in the United States with issues on Solarwinds and Microsoft Exchange servers reinforce the need to address these issues globally. Huawei insists on the need for international cybersecurity regulations.

– What response has the United States given?

– He applied blockages in successive stages. In the first, he prohibited Huawei from selling to the US government. In the second, he banned the sale of Huawei across the country. In the third, it prohibited American companies from selling components or software. And in the fourth, companies around the world, which used American technology in the manufacture of components, were prohibited from selling Huawei.

The relationship with China

– The United States maintains that Huawei should not compete in the market because it is part of a military and geopolitical project from China rather than a commercial one. What is the company’s relationship with the Chinese state?

– During all these years, where we have been under this kind of pressure, we have been tasked with clarifying and repeating several times what the composition of Huawei’s shareholding looks like: we are a 100 percent private company, where about 50 percent of Huawei’s employees are shareholders and founder Ren Zhengfei does not own more than 1% of the capital. The decisions of the company are taken on the basis of this participation of each of the shareholders.

– Does the Chinese state have no stake in Huawei?

– Everything the United States says about the link with the Chinese state and about military projects has no basis. They never provided any evidence to that effect because they don’t exist. Regarding what is the relationship of a private company like Huawei with the Chinese state, it is not far from the relationship that an Argentine company would have with the Argentine state. She has good communication skills and Argentina will surely be interested in an Argentinian company that succeeds in the rest of the world, but not more than that.

How 5G Works

– 5G is a single global standard defined by operators, governments and manufacturers around the world. It is accepted worldwide by a unique standards group called 3GPP. All 5G networks must meet the only global standard. What changes are obviously the implementations.

– What is happening in the rest of the countries?

– We offer communication networks and equipment in more than 170 countries. We understand and it is clear to us that certain countries or companies in certain countries may decide not to buy from Huawei, which has been the case since Huawei has been around. We support this free decision. With 5G, on a global scale, we are already in more than 70 networks, with which, even despite the pressure received, we continue to offer the technology.

– Didn’t they have an impact on American policy?

– Yes, we have seen a decline in sales of mobile devices, mainly mobile phones, especially in Europe and this has been reflected in the latest balance sheets. But, in the end, it can also be taken as an incentive or an opportunity to continue to invest heavily, as we have been doing since the creation of Huawei. We reinvest approximately 15% of our annual revenues in research and development. For example, the inability to access Google services led us to launch Harmony, our operating system. We are now on version number two of Harmony. With this operating system, for example, our latest mobile device was launched: Huawei P50.

– How did you solve the habit of users of Google services on Huawei devices?

– One of the first steps was to open our own app gallery. It would be like the equivalent of Google Play where every Huawei mobile phone user can download all applications: WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, which have been optimized for an Android that does not have Google services. The second phase consisted of building our own operating system with the challenges but also with the advantages of launching something new and which we hope will gradually become a new standard for mobile phone operating systems. .

– What does it mean for you, as the vice president of Huawei, to be part of this geopolitical dispute between the United States and China?

– It took us by surprise, not only in Argentina but also in the world, because our visibility in the media on these issues has so far been very low. If they saw us in the media it was to talk about the benefits and innovations of our latest team or the launch of a certain cell phone. It was just that. But, in this case, we think it is very important to be able to go out and clarify what Huawei is doing and, mainly, what Huawei is not doing.