Pressure from America helps Huawei grow
By Zhang Zhouxiang | China Daily | Updated: 2019-09-20 07:36
"Like the weather today. Nice and clean." This is what Hu Houkun, vice-chairperson of the Huawei board, said when asked about his views on the condition of Huawei at the company's annual developers' meeting. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:
It has been five months since the United States included Huawei in its "Entity List" and about 10 months since Canada detained Meng Wanzhou, Huawei chief financial officer and daughter of the company's founder Ren Zhengfei. The US administration has given Huawei two three-month "reprieves", though, showing US companies are also affected by Washington's move against the Chinese company.
Although the restrictive measures expose the narrow-mindedness of some US politicians, they have not been able to "contain" Huawei, as the company continues to grow. On Wednesday, the Chinese high-tech giant unveiled the world's fastest artificial intelligence computing platform. It unveiled its first mobile operating system, Harmony, last month.
In the first quarter of this year, Huawei sold 59 million smartphones, much more than iPhone. Huawei has not only become a competitor that Apple can no longer ignore but also an important player in the global telecommunications market that very few can do without.
In fact, by putting "maximum pressure" on Huawei, the US administration has helped it become popular among new consumers. Also, when the US threatened to cut the supply of chips to Huawei, many Chinese consumers said the next smartphone they buy would be Huawei. Thus it would be fair to say Huawei's fan base has expanded after the US politicians targeted the company.
More and more Chinese companies are now ready to help Huawei given that the US is intensifying the trade war against China. Even some US companies have been cooperating with Huawei within the US' legal framework, because fair business yields win-win results and trade war leaves no side unscathed.
It is time for the US politicians to rethink their trade strategy, as it is failing.
