Growing stronger key to solving Huawei issue

Huawei is now facing its most severe test since it became the world-renowned innovative tech company. Japan’s Kyodo News reported Friday that the country “plans to effectively exclude Chinese telecommunication equipment makers Huawei and ZTE from public procurement.” US efforts to pressure its allies to stop using Chinese hightech products seem to have made new progress. Meanwhile, Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was detained by Canada on December 1 at the behest of the US, which has made headlines around the world.

Thirty years after the company was established, Huawei has been making step by step progress on the path of technological innovation. Today, it has become a tech giant with 180,000 employees, almost half of whom are research personnel. It does business around the globe and it is generally believed that some of Huawei’s 5G technologies are world leaders.

But the US has been piling on ever increasing pressure on Huawei over the past two years. Along with restricting Huawei’s products from entering the US market, Washington is demanding its allies take coordinated action and bar Huawei’s equipment in the construction of their 5G networks. Australia, New Zealand the UK have all followed the US lead. It shows Washington’s unique capability to elbow out Chinese high-tech firms through non-market means.

Huawei has to sail against this wind, a challenge the Chinese high-tech company is bound to face. It is also a reflection of the challenges the country’s entire technology sector is facing.

Unlike China’s State-owned enterprises, Huawei is a genuine private firm. But the severe political discrimination and repulsion from the US reflect an undeniable fact – the political gap between China and the US and a few other Western nations is too wide to bridge.

To solve Huawei’s predicament, the company has to pursue its superior and irreplaceable status in the industry so as to withstand discrimination from the US. Some Western telecom operators concede that Huawei is “the only true 5G supplier right now,” and it is impossible to refuse to use Huawei’s equipment. Further boosting its technological strength will consolidate such understanding around the world.

Meanwhile, China needs to ease its geopolitical and ideological tensions with the US and the West through expanding its opening-up to the world. It proves that easing tensions between China and the US and between China and the West is also one of China’s core interests.

China should spare no effort in coordinating its traditional national interests and relations with the West, which will help Chinese enterprises stride toward the leading position in the world.