The problem with official propaganda and narratives is that they’re tiresome once you break them down to their bare grain. Case in point: Huawei’s keynote presentation at IFA Berlin 2020. In that event, Walter Ji outlined —with great difficulty— the program for the Chinese military-owned consumer electronics manufacturer and network provider conglomerate as it faces worldwide rejection, several judicial probes regarding racketeering, bribes, industrial espionage, sabotage and cyber espionage regarding their latest 5G technologies.
At IFA Berlin 2020, Huawei showcased their 1+8+N strategy as part of their consumer electronics product offer for the European market while stressing how the new normality arising from coronavirus had everyone around the world relying more and more on their smartphones and mobile networks. In a segment titled Huawei’s Commitment to Customers, the company appealed to some really low-level snake oil-salesmen tactics when they had to touch the subject regarding privacy. Walter Ji claims that the company he works for “respects and protects privacy”, and goes on to say that Huawei “would never voluntarily share their customers’ information”. This statement is false as it gets, because the law in the People’s Republic of China requires all companies to collaborate with that country’s authorities and hand over all the data they require. Still, to ease us Walter Ji tells the public to “just take [his] word for it.” It turns out that Walter Ji’s word isn’t enough, as Huawei’s utterly corrupt corporate practices are shadowed by well-intentioned corporate social responsibility programs, European workforce and not being able to rank on the top three competitors for consumer electronics outside their artificially-created Mainland Communist China market.
It’s evident that Huawei, like all of China’s industrial park relies on Western innovation to move forward, and as more government probes, sanctions and healthy competition from manufacturers that seem to find a way around Huawei’s and ZTE’s attractive price tag for 5G network equipment. Just recently, Attorney General for the United States William Barr, expressed that his country will do everything in their power to disrupt the influence of Chinese corporations in the financial markets worldwide. While Huawei gets slapped by sanctions, other Chicoms get in trouble with regulatory affairs, face big tech in American courts —like the Apple v. Epic Games legal issue in California— or get bans for their apps, just like what happened in the US and India recently with popular platforms like TikTok, PUBG Mobile and WeChat.
Huawei’s Competition
In the 5G industry, nobody is as big as Huawei, but that trend is about to change as European manufacturers Ericsson from Sweden and Nokia from Finland receive major contracts from governments and network carriers worldwide. Ericsson landed a contract to retrofit and make central Russia’s mobile network 5G ready by 2026, Nokia landed a nation-wide contract to set up standalone 5G networks in Singapore, Vietnam and Australia look for 5G manufacturers other than Huawei, and India’s telecommunications conglomerates study the possibility of rolling out and developing their domestically manufactured 5G equipment to satisfy domestic demand for higher speeds, uploads and bandwidth.
