According to recent reports, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that the US State Department will impose visa restrictions on certain employees of Chinese technology companies including Huawei. The visa restriction will most likely apply to Huawei’s top officials and top technical staff. However, in an official response, Hauwei expressed its disappointment at the behavior of the U.S.
Huawei responded by saying that it is a “private, employee-owned” company. “Restricting the visas of our employees who make unremitting efforts to contribute to technological innovation in the United States and around the world is an unjust and arbitrary action, and we are disappointed,” the company said.
For a long time, the Trump administration has not hidden its desire to ban all Huawei products around the world, especially for 5G wireless networks. Trump recently admitted at a press conference in the Rose Garden that he personally persuades the US allies to ban Huawei.
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At the moment, Huawei is at an important turning point. The company is defeating all odds so far but nobody knows if it can hold on for much longer. In fact, Huawei employees are generally more rational: “What we are doing now is low-key, waiting, watching, and not too illusory. There is no retreat, only the road to victory.”
Huawei is not going down easily
No doubt, the United States is a world power and it has a lot of resources to bring Huawei down. We must give the Chinese company some accolades. It has done pretty well over the past year with multiple U.S. ban. With the U.S. ban in place, it recorded its highest-ever annual smartphone sales. Furthermore, it also became the world’s largest smartphone brand in April 2020, a position it retained in May.
Recall that when the U.S. dropped the hammer on another Chinese manufacturer, ZTE, it could not continue operations. It had to crawl to the U.S., changed its entire executives at the request of the U.S., and paid a huge sum before the ban was lifted. Obviously, Huawei and ZTE are not on the same level technologically.
The American government is probably expecting the same thing (as ZTE did) from Huawei. Unfortunately, it is not getting what it wants. So far, Huawei has proven that it can withstand the bites of the U.S. The Chinese manufacturer has shown that a single rule change from the U.S. can not ground any company instantly. It will be interesting to see how all these brouhahas plays out.
