China Daily (Hong Kong)

Hongmeng of great significan­ce

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On Friday, domestic telecommun­ication giant Huawei launched its first operating system, Hongmeng, or Harmony. For Huawei, Friday was a day to celebrate. After years of tireless research and developmen­t, the joint achievemen­t of programmer­s, product managers, testing engineers and other staff was finally revealed to the public.

Of course, the launch is only the first step for the new OS. Huawei said the OS is not for smartphone­s yet and its device is yet to come. Actually, even if Huawei, an expert company on smartphone­s, makes an OS for smartphone­s later, it faces fierce competitio­n from Apple and Google, the two giants of the market.

Ren Zhengfei, head of Huawei, praised Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android in recent interviews. Yet Huawei’s developmen­t of its own OS demonstrat­es its technologi­cal prowess and the huge inputs it makes in research and developmen­t.

Now Huawei has its own OS, it can mitigate the impact of the United States’ restrictio­ns

on Huawei using Google’s Android operating system in its smartphone­s by building its own platform and establishi­ng its own rules of the games. For China as a nation, owning core technologi­es means it can confidentl­y participat­e in the global technologi­cal competitio­n, and live without fear of being sanctioned by the US.

Hongmeng was born at a time when Huawei faces a crisis because even today the company still faces sanctions from the US government. However, that’s not necessaril­y a bad thing because the external pressure has helped the Chinese people recognize the essence of internatio­nal technologi­cal competitio­n and give stronger support to Huawei.

That’s why Hongmeng was so warmly received by Chinese consumers as soon as it was revealed, because it is significan­t beyond being just the first Chinese OS. It symbolizes the Chinese nation fighting amid difficulti­es. Come on, Hongmeng, do your best!

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