Huawei vs. Trump: all the news about the Chinese phone maker’s messy relationship with the US – The Verge

US agrees not to pursue fraud charges against Huawei CFO

2021-09-26T17:47:46-04:00

Reuters and the CBC first reported that Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou would appear in a Brooklyn federal courtroom today via streaming video and enter a plea regarding US charges against her. Canadian authorities arrested the Chinese executive in December 2018 on suspicion of violating US sanctions, and she has remained there on house arrest ever since, fighting US attempts at extradition. Hearings in her extradition case ended in August, with the ruling scheduled for October 21st.

Meng was indicted on fraud charges claiming the Chinese technology and telecommunications company misrepresented its relationship with an Iranian affiliate, along with …

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Huawei founder says company should dodge sanctions by pivoting to software: report

2021-05-25T02:08:40-04:00

Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has reportedly urged the Chinese tech giant's staff to turn the company into a major software force as a way to alleviate the impact of devastating US sanctions. In an internal memo viewed by Reuters, Ren says that Huawei should focus on software because the industry is "outside of US control and we will have greater independence and autonomy."

Huawei is presently unable to mass-produce much of its hardware products because of sanctions forbidding US firms from doing business with it. The company stockpiled chips and components in an attempt to mitigate the sanctions, but the reserves are limited and in s …

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Trump administration blacklists Xiaomi as a ‘Communist Chinese military company’

2021-01-14T18:26:50-05:00

With six days left in office, the Trump administration has decided to put one more Chinese electronics giant in its sights: Xiaomi, the world's number three phone manufacturer. The US Department of Defense is now designating Xiaomi as a "Chinese Communist military company," meaning it's now vulnerable to Trump's executive order that bans the US from investing in such companies - and might force US companies and other US investors to divest in Xiaomi on November 11th, 2021, as reported by Reuters.

In a statement sent to The Verge, Xiaomi maintains that it's "operating in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations of jurisdictions wher …

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Samsung reportedly cutting off chip sales to Huawei

2020-09-08T15:56:21-04:00

Samsung and SK Hynix will reportedly stop selling components to Huawei as the Trump administration tightens sanctions on the Chinese phone maker. According to Chosun Ilbo and other Korean news outlets, the companies will suspend trade on September 15th, the day a new set of rules limits dealing with Huawei.

These sanctions were introduced in August, following a string of other restrictions implemented since last year. They ban non-American companies from selling components that were developed with US technology unless these companies obtain special approval. This poses a serious threat to Huawei, which has said it may no longer be able to m …

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Living a Google-free life with a Huawei phone

2020-03-25T07:30:00-04:00

Tomorrow Huawei will launch its latest flagship phones, the P40 series, at an event to be streamed online. There won't be any people in the audience, of course, but even if there were, the atmosphere would be pretty weird. That's because it's impossible to separate Huawei's consumer products from the political onslaught it's faced in the past couple of years.

Whether you believe that Huawei is a threat to national security in the West or not, the knock-on effects to its phone business are real. Google is barred from doing business with Huawei, meaning the Chinese giant is unable to obtain an Android license. And that means that until furthe …

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Google addresses Huawei ban and warns customers not to sideload apps like Gmail and YouTube

2020-02-21T18:41:50-05:00

Google on Friday evening published a support article meant to clarify the ongoing situation with Huawei. Last year, the United States government barred companies in the US from working with the Chinese hardware maker. "Google is prohibited from working with Huawei on new device models or providing Google's apps including Gmail, Maps, YouTube, the Play Store and others for preload or download on these devices," Tristan Ostrowski, legal director for Android and Google Play, wrote in the post, which was picked up by 9to5Google.

According to Google, there's still plenty of confusion around what's going on - and exactly which products are subjec …

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Arrested Huawei executive hit with new US charges ahead of extradition

2020-02-13T15:41:10-05:00

The US Justice Department indicted both Huawei and its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou for racketeering and conspiring to steal American trade secrets on Thursday. Meng was arrested in Canada in 2018, and is currently undergoing extradition proceedings that would move her to the US. This latest indictment adds 16 counts of conspiracy to the trade secrets and racketeering charges already levied against her.

In its press release, the DOJ accuses Huawei and Meng of nearly 20 years of efforts to steal the intellectual property of US businesses, including "source code and user manuals for internet routers, antenna technology and robot testi …

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Feds claim Huawei can snoop on mobile networks

2020-02-11T16:35:28-05:00

US officials say Huawei maintains backdoors into telecom networks across the world, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The news comes after years of escalating sanctions against the company - including an executive order in May that prohibited US companies from licensing tech to Huawei - but the justifications for those sanctions have remained vague and clouded by secrecy. Now, officials are getting specific, claiming the Chinese hardware manufacturer has maintained backdoors into some of the networks it builds, starting as early as 4G equipment sold in 2009. There's also no hard evidence of the capability, but the claims are …

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US attorney general says tech and telecom industries should invest in Huawei competitors

2020-02-06T14:40:30-05:00

The Trump administration's latest suggestion for combating the dominance of Chinese telecom giant Huawei: invest in its European competitors. The idea comes from US Attorney General William Barr, a former top lawyer for Verizon, who floated the notion of pushing members of the technology and telecom industries to invest in Ericsson and Nokia when speaking to a crowd at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC on Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The move represents yet more escalation in Trump's increasingly ugly standoff with Huawei, a Chinese corporation many of the world's tech and telecom compan …

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US pushing tech and telecom industries to build 5G alternative to Huawei

2020-02-05T13:28:14-05:00

The Trump administration is trying to accelerate efforts to break ties with Chinese tech giant Huawei when it comes to building out next-generation 5G cell networks, The Wall Street Journal reports. The goal is to create common engineering standards for 5G networks that would allow tech and telecom companies to use US-made equipment over Huawei's. As it stands right now, Huawei is the world's leading telecom hardware provider, and its best-in-class products are sold to large companies that help cell towers and smartphones communicate, among other technical feats.

"The big-picture concept is to have all of the US 5G architecture and infrastr …

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