It isn’t surprising to hear about Huawei’s attempts to bypass US sanctions that prevent it from buying products, technologies, and even software from former partners like Qualcomm and Google. for instance, it ordered some 4G-only Snapdragon chips to bypass its ban from touching anything associated with 5G. Some lawmakers and officialdom within the US see its sale of Honor to a consortium of these evasive maneuvers and need the previous subsidiary to be placed on an equivalent Entity List. Unfortunately for them, their colleagues have placed the choice during a deadlock.
Huawei was put within the US government’s entity list under the Trump administration for allegedly being a national security threat and violating trade bans with Iran. Being thereon list meant that it couldn’t do business with US companies without a license from the US Department of Commerce, specifically when purchasing US products associated with 5G networks. This put Huawei’s smartphone and networking hardware business in danger and chipmaker HiSilicon and subsidiary phone manufacturer Honor.
Huawei sold off Honor to a consortium of over 30 agents and dealers last year to keep Honor from folding. Some within the US, however, took issue with how that consortium still has alleged ties to state-backed investors and even has former Huawei executives at the helm. Unsurprisingly, US lawmakers and a few agencies want Honor to suffer an equivalent fate as its former parent.
Fortunately for Honor, the vote has been split between two halves of the decision-making body. The Pentagon and Department of Energy want Honor to be sanction while the Commerce and State departments are of the other opinion. Within the event of a protracted impasse, the cupboard could make that decision within the end, or maybe President Biden himself could make the ultimate decision. Biden’s administration has made no effort thus far to get rid of Huawei from the entity list.
The debate just about revolves around whether Honor, who doesn’t sell smartphones within the US and doesn’t make networking equipment like Huawei, can be considered a national security threat. Some cite the shortage of concrete evidence tying it to the Chinese government to be enough reason to exclude Honor from the list. Others argue, however, that China’s state-backed ownership structure and party-state economy just about guarantees that it’s.
