US Senators push for Honor Blacklisting
Florida Senator Marco Rubio and a number of other Republican senators called on President Biden to add Honor (pvt), the independent spin-off of Huawei’s (pvt) smartphone business, to the ‘entities’ list that would keep company’s in the US or those using US developed equipment from sourcing product to the Chinese company. Rubio described Honor as an ‘arm’ of the Chinese government that is now able to access US technology that has been denied to Huawei. With the spin-off of the Honor business, Huawei has stated that they have no financial or management influence over Honor, which has given the company the ability to access the Google App store and associated products, which opens the company’s products up to the world market, while Huawei remains unable to do so, which has severely limited its smartphone business.
Rubio’s letter goes further, stating that the Chinese government has been able to dodge a ‘critical American export control’, and by failing to act the US Department of Commerce is setting a dangerous precedent, ‘and communicating to adversaries that we lack the capacity or willpower to punish blatant financial engineering by an authoritarian regime.’ Last August a group of Republican Congressmen also called on the DoC to add Honor to the list, under the assumption that keeping Honor ‘unlisted’ would allow Huawei access to semiconductor foundries and equipment that has been restricted by the listing, although no proof of Huawei’s alleged access to the Honor supply chain has been given in either instance.
Honor might have caused this latest political diatribe by mentioning earlier this week that it had ‘succeeded in confirming cooperation with a number of supplier partners in the early stage” and that upcoming Honor 50 smartphones would include Google Mobile Services, the most onerous part of the Huawei ban. This seemed to have attracted the attention of China hawks and put Honor back in their field of vision. While Honor might find it necessary to announce its current independence from the Huawei ban, it might have served them better to wait until they were able to both secure substantial component inventory from foundries and to release at least one major product using Google services and letting the ‘chips’ fall where they may after that. Now the increasing pressure to focus on China as an adversary will likely pull in any decision by the current administration and could end Honor’s elation over being able to release its first truly global smartphone.
Rubio’s letter goes further, stating that the Chinese government has been able to dodge a ‘critical American export control’, and by failing to act the US Department of Commerce is setting a dangerous precedent, ‘and communicating to adversaries that we lack the capacity or willpower to punish blatant financial engineering by an authoritarian regime.’ Last August a group of Republican Congressmen also called on the DoC to add Honor to the list, under the assumption that keeping Honor ‘unlisted’ would allow Huawei access to semiconductor foundries and equipment that has been restricted by the listing, although no proof of Huawei’s alleged access to the Honor supply chain has been given in either instance.
Honor might have caused this latest political diatribe by mentioning earlier this week that it had ‘succeeded in confirming cooperation with a number of supplier partners in the early stage” and that upcoming Honor 50 smartphones would include Google Mobile Services, the most onerous part of the Huawei ban. This seemed to have attracted the attention of China hawks and put Honor back in their field of vision. While Honor might find it necessary to announce its current independence from the Huawei ban, it might have served them better to wait until they were able to both secure substantial component inventory from foundries and to release at least one major product using Google services and letting the ‘chips’ fall where they may after that. Now the increasing pressure to focus on China as an adversary will likely pull in any decision by the current administration and could end Honor’s elation over being able to release its first truly global smartphone.
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