Huawei Report

Last night, a letter from the Japanese , a small screen in the circle of friends , really warmed me! If the sentence has been said many times, the human being has its own true feelings. When he encounters a crisis, he knows that he has been cared for by so many strangers. On the day of bail, I waited in the court to go through the formalities. The lawyer chatted with me and said that many strangers called the law firm and said that they would use my property to guarantee me, even if they didn’t know me at all, they didn’t even I know, but they know Huawei, they recognize Huawei, so they are willing to believe me. My lawyer said that he has been in business for forty years and has never seen anything like this, which is willing to guarantee for strangers. Listening to the lawyer’s words, I couldn’t help but burst into tears, not crying for myself, but for so many people who would trust me and trust me. When the earthquake in Fukushima, Japan, I happened to be in IBM , USA.Headquarters, participating in the one-week workshop, in the final round of detailed communication with IBM senior financial experts for the launch of IFS changes and the scope of IFS changes.

　　At that time, the company had just decided to create emergency plans for finance and funding, in the case of war, plague, turmoil, earthquakes, etc., The financial and business teams jointly worked out emergency plans in various scenarios. We organized drills on weekdays for disasters.

When the occurrence occurs, the plan can be quickly started, and various departments of the company can quickly assemble and respond quickly according to the design of the plan. Because I really can’t leave in the United States, let Sun Zong go to Japan alone.

Most Chinese believe supporting Huawei against a foreign attack is patriotism. Quartz reports Henan’s Shennong Mountain, a famous geological site in central China, will admit any tourist who owned a Huawei mobile phone into the park free of charge for two weeks. Laoshan Baiyundong, a famous mountain in Hebei that’s considered the cradle of Taoism, followed suit. offering free admission (link in Chinese) to Huawei phone users for six days.

Every Chinese school child knows of the “Unfair Treaties” imposed after the Opium Wars. The Chinese now are able to fight power with power. They have no intention of losing.

Ken Hu said adding Huawei to the bidding in Australia would bring down prices. COMMSDay printed this that I said “Adding Huawei to the bidding often brings down prices 10-25%. I consulted on a deal nearly a decade ago where they bid about 30% lower. Everybody bids more aggressively when they get competition. But Huawei no longer has to bid so low. No one in the industry any longer doubts that Huawei products are comparable to the best. Every deal in telecom is different and bid privately, so no one can give a definitive answer.”

This is the supposed “smoking gun” presented by the Americans as proof of a conspiracy to provide hundreds of millions to Iran. From The South China Morning Post. SCMP has the other 16 slides, an ordinary, dull corporate presentation that says very little. 

I am not a lawyer. It appears to be very weak evidence that would prove little in an unbiased courtroom. It was ridiculous to make an international incident out of it.

On the other hand, U.S. law allows prosecutions for “conspiracy” and other “crimes” on very little evidence. It was designed to prosecute the Mafia but now is used in many other areas. 

The DC discussion about ZTE was profoundly uninformed. So I wrote this note.

Thank you for your article, “China’s long march for the soul of the nation’s digital future” (May 26). It offers important information about China’s effort in processor chips.

In my field, telecommunications, China has already become a leader. Recently, both Huawei and Qualcomm released chips for mobile phones supporting a download speed of two gigabits per second. They demonstrated the same quality of engineering. Massive MIMO, a key part of 5G, was invented in New Jersey but ZTE and Huawei were the first to market it. They were more than a year ahead of the West.

This should surprise no one. For a decade, whenever I have visited electronic engineers at places like Stanford University, many of those I have met are from China. I recently reported on research at China’s Tsinghua and Southeast universities.

Some in Washington have the false belief that other countries cannot advance without American technology. That leads them to make very bad decisions. I learn from China and I know my Chinese friends learn from the best in America. Dave Burstein, New York

“It has been known that some telecom vendors are sitting in the network security advisory board of certain national security agencies to exclude competing vendors, citing national security concerns to benefit themselves.

They spread fear, uncertainty and doubt to politicians and these agencies without any supporting evidence. Operators (and countries) should do an independent technical evaluation and decide for themselves.”
Anonymous because of the source.  This comment was inspired by a government security agency advisor employed by a Huawei competitor.

Alcatel and Nokia have been prominent in the U.S. campaign against Huawei.

I don’t necessarily agree.

The U.S. boycott is growing far faster than anyone expected and now looks to cut Huawei sales by US$2-3 billion per year. This is significant even to a company doing US$100 billion in sales this year. There is pressure on India, Italy, and Canada; In all cases, the telcos are unhappy because Huawei is important to them, but resistance may be futile. 

Deutsche Telekom and Softbank want the government to approve the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, a very bad deal for consumers. They are particularly subject to pressure.

DT and Softbank backing away from Huawei is consistent with a behind the scenes deal with the U.S. security interests.  Depending on the assumptions, approval of the deal is worth $10 billion to US$20 billion to the companies. I have absolutely no direct data.

I’ve been close enough to U.S. policy to know that “national security” overrides everything else. If that’s the deal, the Justice Department and the FCC would go along.  I first thought this could be a special case.

When NTT DOCOMO and KDDI  joined, I had to revise my thinking. The Japanese government made the decision, presumably with behind the scenes conversations with the Americans. Relations with China are crucial to Japan, but the U.S. nuclear umbrella is even more important. 

Softbank, NTT DOCOMO, and KDDI spend about US$10 billion on capex each year. Only some of that is equipment and only some of the equipment comes from Huawei. The total Huawei will lose is probably over US$1 billion.