US Stops Granting Export Licenses For China's Huawei (reuters.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The Biden administration has stopped approving licenses for U.S. companies to export most items to China's Huawei, according to three people familiar with the matter. Huawei has faced U.S. export restrictions around items for 5G and other technologies for several years, but officials in the U.S. Department of Commerce have granted licenses for some American firms to sell certain goods and technologies to the company. Qualcomm in 2020 received permission to sell 4G smartphone chips to Huawei.
One person familiar with the matter said U.S. officials are creating a new formal policy of denial for shipping items to Huawei that would include items below the 5G level, including 4G items, Wifi 6 and 7, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing and cloud items. Another person said the move was expected to reflect the Biden administration's tightening of policy on Huawei over the past year. Licenses for 4G chips that could not be used for 5g, which might have been approved earlier, were being denied, the person said. Toward the end of the Trump administration and early in the Biden administration, officials had still granted licenses for items specific to 4G applications. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China opposes the United States abusing an overly broad notion of national security to suppress Chinese firms unreasonably. The move "goes against the principles of the market economy and rules of international trade and finance, hurts the confidence the international community has in the U.S business environment and is blatant technological hegemony," Mao said during a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
One person familiar with the matter said U.S. officials are creating a new formal policy of denial for shipping items to Huawei that would include items below the 5G level, including 4G items, Wifi 6 and 7, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing and cloud items. Another person said the move was expected to reflect the Biden administration's tightening of policy on Huawei over the past year. Licenses for 4G chips that could not be used for 5g, which might have been approved earlier, were being denied, the person said. Toward the end of the Trump administration and early in the Biden administration, officials had still granted licenses for items specific to 4G applications. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China opposes the United States abusing an overly broad notion of national security to suppress Chinese firms unreasonably. The move "goes against the principles of the market economy and rules of international trade and finance, hurts the confidence the international community has in the U.S business environment and is blatant technological hegemony," Mao said during a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday.
What took so long? (Score:3)
I expected this move by the USA at least 10 years ago
Re: (Score:1)
I guess it will lead to more embargos. Because if banning Chinese products works now, why stop tomorrow?
But it might lead to China decoupling from the USA and western Europe. According to other news, SMIC can make 7nm chips today, at the expense of higher cost and worse yield. And if you don't need a new PC every three years, the extra cost might be tolerable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
They won't even have to eat grass. From what I read elsewhere, it seems China won't need to long to reach the 28nm node in its own manufacturing. That is what you have in computers from the early 2010s. Obsolete but still good enough for office applications, applications to control industrial processes and so on.
Where they might struggle with hardware like that is AI, especially the training part. Something like ChatGPT might not be viable without more advanced computing hardware.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty certain lemongrass is already a part of the Asian diet and can be found in many Asian markets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
What will actually happen is:
1) US company loses sales to Huawei
2) Huawei makes its own chips and the US won't know what's inside them
3) Huawei comes back and undercuts US company on pricing
So it's a win all round.
Right?
Re: What took so long? (Score:1)
My question is how likely was it that the Chinese government actually did what the us accused them of all things assumed equal.
Re: (Score:1)
They essentially accused Huawei of working with/for the Chinese military. Just like Boeing, Lockheed etc. are supplying the US armed forces.
An embargo might be a (geo)strategically valid means of slowing them down, but don't be surprised if China embargoes western arms makers at some point.
Re: (Score:1)
Huawei has engaged in various forms of criminal activity and IP theft. US intelligence agencies have warned about Huawei of spying for the Chinese government for years. That's a lot different from supplying fighter jets to the armed forces.
Re: What took so long? (Score:1)
I thinking about the 5g equipment being used to undermine security not just the us has commented on that.
Re: (Score:2)
I expected this move by the USA at least 10 years ago
The USA has had open support for China ... providing they were behind in all ways. The biggest fundamental change is that China ended up largely dominating the development and became one of the first to market with 5G devices. Given the estimate of well over $1tn for the market value of 5G technology that scared the ever-loving shit out of the USA who are now trying their best to suppress Chinese advancement.
Re: (Score:2)
It's telling that they only include items below 5G level. Huawei did the research and got the patents, so aside from it having minimal effect on Huawei, it would screw a lot of US companies that are reliant on Huawei for the technology they licenced.
America is determined to start WW3 with china (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
'America' is not. The Neocons and the Military industrial complex are. You see them trying to keep the Ukraine conflict constantly supplied with weapons.
Trump started no new wars. What other President can make that claim?
Re: (Score:1)
This 100% this. Its not just the neocons though anymore its the NWO rah rah globalism crowd as well.
Hint anyone 'THEY' are not labeling a populist at this point is a traitor. Those in office should be removed for failing to uphold the Constitution. The mission of the federal government is set out in the preamble. They are supposed to be "Promoting the GENERAL welfare, providing for the common DEFENSE ... and securing the blessing of liberty to OURSELVES and OUR posterity"
Engaging in WARS OF CHOICE and tha
Re: America is determined to start WW3 with china (Score:1)
Very subjective your ststements. Can you explain the actions by that administration that made sure Russia would invade Ukraine? Anouncing intent to leave NATO, announcing a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, trying to drasticly cut troop levels in Europe and the US,. Reports of top secret documents ending up in Russian hands. Or are they irrelevant or never happened?
Re: (Score:1)
Some of them never happened, most are irrelevant. Even if our policies encouraged Russia to invade Ukraine its NOT OUR PROBLEM!
Russia does not pose a threat to us any longer. They have virtually zero ability to do force projection over here. They only thing they have missiles and nukes, which they can't use because of MAD.
The USA has no interest in maintain troop levels in Europe or really in NATO at this point. The EU should deal with Europe's security problems NOT us!
Re: America is determined to start WW3 with china (Score:1)
Russia has threatened to attack other countries in Western Europe just since the Ukraine unrest, a few of them are NATO members. He has mentioned openly more than once he did not intend to stop with Ukraine. Taking that and only that into account it makes everything I mentioned above very relevant. As for the reasons you say didn't happen will you be more specific about which?
cellphones and laptops are tablescraps for huawei (Score:5, Insightful)
The meat and potatoes of Huawei IS NOT the cellphone/handset/tablet/laptop division, but rather the Telco gear (the core switches, SDH/fiber gear, basestations, datacomm [routers], and storage) that power celular/fixedline and internet networks.
Huawei could not care less if they do not get any more intel or ARM processors for handsets or laptops, but they would be devastated if they loose access to FPGAs for basestations.
Huawei has been preparing for this day for a long time.
- They divested their Honor cellphone brand while it still had value:
- They also divested the server division in preparation for the day when they would lose access to X-86-64 and Windows (yes, they use Linux too)
But telco is a whole other ballpark. No one, not even the telcos themselves, care too much about what is inside the gear, as long as it works.
For instance, Huawei uses Power chips in basestations, switches (fixed and mobile) and some other gears. Since the Power istruction set is open, we{1} would not care less if they use Power chips from IBM (USoA) or an NXP (Dutch) QorIQ Qonverge B4860s, or some inhouse developed alternative{2} as long as it works
We could not care less if an Optical mux has an Acacia comunications (USoA) chip inside or a tejas networks (India) chip inside. We do not care if a ODU has a Xilinx (USoA) FPGA or an FPGA from AGM Microelectronics or Gowin Semiconductors (china).
We could care less if our Oceanstor Storage uses Toshiba Enterprise HDDs (Japan) instead of using Seagate or WD (USoA)...
Also, Huawei was more than happy to let all the limelight fall on the consumer divisions (terminal, in Huawei's parlance), for while everyone was attentive to Huawei's ARM, Android and Laptop woes, Huawei had ample time to stockpile chips and other supplies, and develop alternatives using non-USoA supplied materials too keep alive and well the meat and potatoes of the operation.
JM2C
YMMV
PS: If, after all that, anyone is still fixated on that will happen to the consumer/terminal division (the tablescraps of the opeeration), they will keep selling cellphones, mind you, at some point those phones will not be flagships anymore, and if (or rather when) the USoA fully sanctions SMIC (instead of the partial sanction they have now), they will be able to fab their Kyrin back into semi-modern nodes whith them, as for Laptops, they will probably use Zhaoxhin processors for those, with Kylin as the OS (if push comes to shove), and latter some of the homegrown processors, and make a killing selling those to the Chinese goverments, which will probably throw them a lifeline... Yesm their precensce on the global market for consumer electronics will all but disapear, but they will still be a powerhouse in the (vast) chinese market.
{1} I say we because I work in telecoms in my country, and for full disclosure, from Jun '07 'til Jul '08 I was in Huawei's Payrol, and from '12 'til '16 I was a freelance trainer for them in the Enterprise division.
{2} Huawei's chip design division Hisilicon is very capable, and the PowerISA is open/free as in speech
Re: (Score:2)
The meat and potatoes of Huawei IS NOT the cellphone/handset/tablet/laptop division, but rather the Telco gear (the core switches, SDH/fiber gear, basestations, datacomm [routers], and storage) that power celular/fixedline and internet networks.
Thanks. Now you've got me wondering about who didn't already know this.
I can answer that. Thhe editors of most news sites do not know this, as they keep covering the Intel/ARM/Android woes of Huawei time and time again, and do not even mention the meat and potatoes...
Re: (Score:2)
When some countries banned huawei 5G equipment use by telcos, a lot of the chinese staff wound up in places at ericsson, the new equipment supplier, so the CCP still has subjects in the places they want them.
In international meetings at IEC related events (although I only attended a few) it was clear to me that huawei was operating very differently from everyone else. Mutual benefit as a kind of gentleman's agreement was the way of the old guard. Huawei, and now the new Ericsson (the huawei staff brought in
Huawei isn't a real company (Score:1)
They are a foreign intelligence agency masquerading as a business, and they are under no pressure to EVER make money.
Their only job is to get a footprint that they can use as leverage and for intelligence.
Crypto AG was similar
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
Re:Huawei isn't a real company (Score:4)
That's obvious bullshit, proven not least by the fact that Huawei makes vast amounts of money.
Anyway, if you want to play the innuendo game, let's not forget those leaked NSA slides showing that all the bug US tech companies feed real-time data to the government.
What's really happening (Score:5, Insightful)
Authoritarian regime/Human rights abuses/Taiwan - these issues have always been there and did not matter until recently.
China and market economy? Hilarious. (Score:2)
Re:China and market economy? Hilarious. (Score:4, Insightful)
Conversely, it's amusing to see the US pretend they have a market economy.
Re: (Score:2)
About damn time (Score:1)
Slashdot commenter dynamic_cast said that he opposes China abusing an overly broad notion of national security to support Russia's war crimes unreasonably. The move "goes against the principles of the market economy and rules of international trade and finance, hurts the confidence the international community has in the Chinese business environment and is blatant ass-hattery ," dynamic_cast posted during a coffee break on Wednesday.
it's Huawei specific, it's less impactful (Score:2)
Export licenses are based on the consignee of record.
If I try to export to cnee ABCD, Co., and ABCD Co is blocked, I can't export.
Of course, if ABCD saw this coming years ago and divested critical manufacturing to shell companies EFGH and IJKL *they can still receive the products* so ...how much does it matter?
US gov't might say 'that's fraud and that's illegal!' which yes, basically it is. But if that foreign country makes such dispersion of importers legal, then ipso facto it IS legal (there) and it ends