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TSMC halts new Huawei orders after US tightens restrictions

174 points by therealchiggs 6y ago

DevKoala 6y ago
I always thought that enforcing IP rights overseas was a pipe dream. Amazing.
- est 6y ago
  How is Huawei violating America's IP exactly? Huawei stole 5G from US?
  - DevKoala 6y ago
    This is one of the most famous accounts: https://www.secureworldexpo.com/industry-news/8-steps-huawei-steals-t-mobile-intellectual-property https://www.secureworldexpo.com/industry-news/8-steps-huawei...
  - snovv_crash 6y ago
    They sold tech to Iran despite embargoes.
    - oblio 6y ago
      And that's violating IP exactly how? :-)
      - snovv_crash 6y ago
        The tech that they sold included US IP. So now they fall under some of the same embargo rules.
forgot_again 6y ago
Escalation between the US and China is inevitable. China is fundamentally opposed to everything the US and Democracies around the world stand for politically. Likewise, the US and friends are fundamentally opposed to everything China stands for politically. There is no Universe in which two diametrically opposed juggernauts do not come into conflict. Conflict is simply inevitable when the stakes are this high and there is no greater power able to force deescalation. Either China converts to Democracy or the US and friends adopt Chinese style authoritarianism, or one of the two belligerents collapses either on its own in the manner of the Soviet Union, or by force.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  By some theory of games, mutual destruction between two opposing parties when they are aware of it simply doesn't happen. In addition, when one party knows that they are weaker than the opposing party, conflict cannot happen as the weaker party never escalates. So, Wars in modern age of information are hard to come by since we have a tremendous amount of surveillance and global recon.
  - euix 6y ago
    It's not about tanks or numbers its national resolve and there each side can vastly misread the other. Each side believes it has greater resolve and is in the right. There is no quantitative way to measure this. The only way to to find out is to fight. Just like two people who size each other up, one may be bigger or faster but the will to prevail and willingness to bare any sacrifice and tolerate pain in order to achieve victory is intangible and cannot be known until it is tested. I fear the future will be dark in our lifetime.
    - bsder 6y ago
      > It's not about tanks or numbers its national resolve and there each side can vastly misread the other. Agreed, but to be perfectly honest, I would be 100% happy to see the US pull all manufacturing out of China and put it back on US soil. The US has gained a temporary price reduction in labor that is now evaporating, gained no access to the Chinese market or influenced China to open further, and has lost the actual ability to manufacture far too many goods. If that means things will get more automated because of expensive labor, great! Then we should build our own robots, too. If things will get more expensive, then perhaps we will start throwing things away less and start worrying about longevity more. And, you know, the US has a lot of unemployed people who will need jobs very shortly.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        And who in the US will do the work? It's not just the jobs that went overseas, it's also the factories, the molds, and the skills, on top of that we all apparently want cheap stuff.
augustt 6y ago
Wow. Can someone more familiar with stuff explain how much of a big deal this is? Does this completely kneecap Huawei/China?
- dannyw 6y ago
  In the immediate future, Huawei will be fine: > Huawei has been preparing for such a move by the U.S. since the end of last year, including stockpiling more than a year's worth of networking equipment-related chips, especially for its crucial telecom equipment and carrier business, sources told Nikkei Asian Review.
  - Polylactic_acid 6y ago
    And in the distant future, all common chips and designs will be made without the US.
  - cobookman 6y ago
    Wouldn't Huawei not be able to sell devices made with those chips in western markets due to the restriction?
- dirtyid 6y ago
  Huawei shifted Hisilicon 14nm orders from TSMC to SMIC a month ago in anticipation. I think most of their router hardware is domestic components except from Xilinx FGPAs, but alternatives are difficult to source. The articles mention Huawei's been stockpiling components, it's hard to say how long that will last. Last I read they've already burned through a bunch and they've been rolling out domestic 5G during covid19. There should still be enough runway for a few political exchanges i.e. putting US companies on Chinese unreliable entity list to see what happens. This is a "bigger" move than expected - the anticipated escalation was US reducing US origin tech % to <10. TSMC believes their 7nm was around 9-10% so there was a chance Huawei orders was still viable. Now it's a blanket export license requirement. While the article only covers Huawei, I think it's a broader blanket that applies to all Chinese companies with military connections, which is basically an impossibly difficult task for any company to determine. The impact is unclear. This is one move short of kicking Huawei off dollar trading.
deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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trixie_ 6y ago
Can we get the TSMC fab built in America first before stirring things up?
- dannyw 6y ago
  TSMC's fab is in Taiwan, not PRC. Given the critical nature of semiconductors, if China invaded Taiwan it's hard to see the US not getting involved. TSMC is Taiwan's largest company.
  - trixie_ 6y ago
    I know it's in Taiwan, and if this escalates, the supply chain will get cut. When it comes to 'invasion', there's no chance of defending Taiwan unfortunately. No one has the stomach for that. It's easily one step away from a nuclear war. You think coronavirus is bad...
    - dannyw 6y ago
      The threat of nuclear war goes both ways: the impact of nuclear on discouraging the defence of Taiwan is equally applicable on discouraging the invasion of Taiwan.
      - trixie_ 6y ago
        No one is having a nuclear war over Taiwan. It's important, but not that important. If China invaded Taiwan, the US would not defend it. Super powers don't go to war. They have wars through proxy countries. If super powers did go to war, it would be nuclear war, and it would be bad.
        deleted 6y ago
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        someperson 6y ago
        For what it's worth, the invasion of Taiwan is considered by military planners to be an important flash point for World War 3. It would be bloody, and very likely nuclear, and pull in nearby nations like Japan, and will likely end with hundreds of millions (possibly billions) dead.
billfruit 6y ago
"All non-U. S. chip manufacturers using American chipmaking equipment, intellectual property or design software will have to apply for a license before shipping chips to Huawei." Isn't that really crossing the line; It implies that if a country buys American Equipment/Software then they are at the whims of American policy; American equipment comes with strings attached: Really does not look appealing to many countries this. What if Huawei rebrand themselves or try to gain a new identity etc, then US regulations has to catch up again. Moreover is this some sort of punitive measure against Huawei? What if they approach US courts, what shall be the outcome?
- dannyw 6y ago
  I mean, if you do business in China and recognise Taiwan, you will be shown the door and/or your. business will be literally stolen, so... it's not really different. It's about time we start making China accountable. It's about time we start blocking Tencent and Alibaba from further American acquisition or investment. It's about time we restrict and throttle CCP-controlled media platforms like Tiktok; the same way China does for Western-owned media platforms. We can't keep getting punched and just stand still.
  - addicted 6y ago
    The problem with your argument is that for the vast majority of the world the US, and American companies, have spied far more on their communications, and manipulated far more do their politics than anything China has done. So if those are the calculations the US starts forcing countries to make, the most likely impact will be on American companies before anyone touches the Chinese (largely also because it’s American companies that dominate the internet around the world, and not the Chinese, and restricting internet services will be far easier than physical products for most countries).
    - mlindner 6y ago
      Except the US doesn't enforce US companies to delete and censor specific content in other countries. China's human values are restrictive, US human values are highly tolerant.
jacquesm 6y ago
And thus enables the Chinese semiconductor industry.
- azinman2 6y ago
  Do you think the timelines would really be any different?
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Yes, this will be a huge accelerator. The US is showing China that they can not depend on foundries they do not own lock, stock and barrel and that are on Chinese soil. It's totally obvious what this will lead to. Next: restrictions on selling stepper tech to the Chinese. Wonder how ASML's stock will respond to this news, quite a few reasons to go either way.
- dannyw 6y ago
  The Chinese semiconductor industry is going to happen no matter what; it is one of their strategic priorities and they have been moving in this direction for a long time. This is about making it harder and inflicting some pain on them.
  - cobookman 6y ago
    Just to back it up with a source: https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-pursuit-semiconductor-independence https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-pursuit-semiconductor-i...
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    The effect will be the exact opposite, it will make it harder and will inflict some pain on them in the short term, but in the longer term any internal resistance has just evaporated and they will double down on this.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
synaesthesisx 6y ago
As someone long Qualcomm this is excellent news.
- dannyw 6y ago
  Why? Qualcomm is a US company, subject to the same export restrictions.
  - ac29 6y ago
    Huawei is a competitor in the mobile SoC field.
  - lwneal 6y ago
    Qualcomm and Huawei are both "fabless" semiconductor companies, like NVidia or AMD. These companies design chips, but do not own foundries to manufacture them. TSMC is a "pure-play foundry", a company that does not design chips, but only manufactures chips that other companies have designed. TSMC is the largest and most advanced foundry. Huawei (a Chinese company) and Qualcomm (a US company) both design modems[1]. Huawei and Qualcomm both need TSMC's fabs, or else they will not be able to manufacture their most advanced designs. If Huawei can't buy from TSMC, then new Huawei modems will have to be manufactured with inferior or more expensive alternatives. With Huawei chips now more expensive or less performant, products designed by Qualcomm will be better in comparison. Presumably, this will cause Qualcomm's stock to rise in value, although it may be a net negative for the worldwide economy. See also the recent announcement that TSMC reached an agreement with the US government to move some of its production to Arizona [2]. [1] Huawei's Kirin/Balong chips directly compete with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips: both are currently manufactured on TSMC's 7nm process. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23187698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23187698
- DevKoala 6y ago
  Doesn't Qualcomm lose all future revenue coming from Huawei in this scenario? Please explain.
  - synaesthesisx 6y ago
fermienrico 6y ago
To preface, firstly - I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other. The problem starts when there is a massive asymmetry in the trade. China has completely blocked US services from Google to Uber, and gladly accepts manufacturing investment - Tesla Shanghai factory, Intel's Chengdu factory, etc. because the CCP knows that they will gain tremendously by having IP physically based in China. It leaks like a sieve. I've seen it first hand (in semiconductor industry). America should protect its own interests and interests of other democratic nations before they get eroded, dismantled and sold off to CCP's interests. If China doesn't want American software services running and fairly competing because of CCP surveillance requirements, well...then the US should block all Chinese services from exploiting users[1] and their data, may be EU should block Chinese services from running there until there is strict GDPR requirements and the data is located in EU datacenters. There should be independent datacenter security audits just like CCP wants keys to iCloud datacenters. That would just get us to the fairness level and that's still not enough - there should be a reverse asymmetry to make up for last 20 years of damage - incentivize US/EU services and manfuacturing while simultaneously imposing sanctions and import duties on goods/services made in China. Why not? Can someone tell me why the US/EU shouldn't do the same? I should not be able to buy $1.99 USB cable including shipping from China. [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  > To preface, firstly - I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other. "To preface", "As an X", etc are easy tells that you really aren't what you claim. Just say what you want rather than defensively qualifying it. Most of us here see right through it and it's a waste of bits. > America should protect its own interests and interests of other democratic nations before they get eroded Then we wouldn't be bullying other democratic nations by telling them who they can or cannot trade with. Also, I wish we'd stop with the "democracy" nonsense considering how many democracies we've attacked/overthrown in our history - the most recent being bolivia. Also, "CCP" is a dead giveaway of propaganda/bias. I don't think I've seen "CCP" as much as I've seen in the last few weeks. It's like everyone at propaganda camp got the same memo. > Can someone tell me why the US/EU shouldn't do the same? Can you tell me what "US/EU" is? Isn't the EU their own political entity? Your comment, like so many comments on social media reek of anti-"CCP" propaganda. I believe in protectionism and I agree that you shouldn't be able to buy a $1.99 USB cable from china, mexico, india or EU or anywhere else. The US should set up tariffs on all products against all countries to protect american workers and reindustrialize. Not selectively use protectionism to attack one single nation which doesn't help any american worker. It seems like most of the "pro-american" commenters are foreigners who want to hurt china rather than help america. It's amazing how many "americans" online supported moving jobs from china to india rather than back to the US. Globalism has been a disaster for workers, environment, etc. Everything from climate change to coronavirus pandemic is due to globalism. I've always felt a more national or even regional trading is appropriate. Why doesn't the EU have their own google, facebook, etc? Why doesn't india? Why doesn't japan? Why are we manufacturing the iphone in china? Tariffs/protectionism should be used by nations to protect their workers and industries. In order for that to happen, globalism has to die. This "I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other." does not align with everything else you wrote. If you truly believed that, you'd be praising china since they are doing exactly that.
salimmadjd 6y ago
Anyone else feels this is shortsighted? Estimates are that China is 10 years away to be able to build chips domestically that can compete with TSMC. Mostly because a lot of the precision chip making technologies are hard to make and are only made by a few manufactures and their exports are controlled. However, I feel like our new competitive mindset is using the wall to block others. To wall off China to wall off immigrants. I love to see manufacturing sector return to US and protect US jobs, however, it seems like instead of investing into the future, like we had in the 50s, 60s, 70s we are spending our limited resources waging all types of wars and then using our might to block other countries now. We've lost our ability to make political decisions and planning with a long-term vision, and if we think building walls will stop innovation in other places, we're wrong. All we're doing is setting back China for a few years, fueling a nationalistic fervor to motivate their public even more and once they've caught up, they'll even be stronger and more competitive. While we might keep the aging Western Europe under our pressure, rest of the emerging world will be under China. I'm also really curious how this action will ultimately impact Taiwanese views of merging with China. It's possible this might create more sympathy and create a massive defeat for the nationalist side of Taiwan and the country might vote to merge with China. What would we do then? Stop Apple from buying chips from TSMC?
- NonEUCitizen 6y ago
  Just a note on the word "nationalist" re: Taiwan. It's confusing to most, but in Taiwan, "nationalist" is the pro-China faction, due to historical association of that term with the KMT. "Green," pro-independence, or "TI" (Taiwan Independence) would be the less confusing term for the side you think might lose with this development. The TI side has been winning bigly in the past year thanks to Xi Jinping and Carrie Lam's treatment of Hong Kong, and to China's and WHO's lack of transparency in the early days of COVID-19.
  - GenericsMotors 6y ago
    >Just a note on the word "nationalist" re: Taiwan. It's confusing to most, but in Taiwan, "nationalist" is the pro-China faction, due to historical association of that term with the KMT. >"Green," pro-independence, or "TI" (Taiwan Independence) would be the less confusing term for the side you think might lose with this development. TIL, thanks for sharing!
chvid 6y ago
By the looks of it, this is major news and a big escalation of the US China "trade" war. But I notice this: "TSMC shares in Taiwan were down more than 2% in Monday morning trade, while the benchmark index was down less than 1%." So the market seems to think that is probably not such a big deal or guesses that a solution/workaround will be found. Also that the US may cut-off TSMC supplies to Huawei has been rumoured for about a year now and is an extension of the restrictions on Google software/services and the ARM chip designs.
wbraun 6y ago
What are the near term implications of this? I was under the impression that this was always considered a pretty extreme option. Between this and the plans for the TSMC fab in the USA I wonder what suddenly shifted in US - Taiwan relations. Does this mean that Huawei loses the 5G competition because they are not going to be able to get the chips they need fabricated? Is China going to try to split up Huawei into a bunch of "totally not Huawei" companies?
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  I am sure 5G chips can be built with older processes. They might just need more cooling and be less efficient.
  - kyboren 6y ago
    That makes Huawei's 5G chips much less commercially competitive, giving Qualcomm a leg up in the handset market and making it much harder for Huawei to win. However, for base stations, which are the real prize, Huawei already has a ~1y stockpile of Xilinx FPGAs, so any effects on Huawei's 5G market position will take some time to manifest.
ngcc_hk 6y ago
Let us all free trade for all, but not china can trade with works but the world cannot trade with China.
_ph_ 6y ago
This is a disaster and can get ugly very quickly. Whatever the concerns of the USA against Huawei are, trying to destroy the company by pressuring international companies in severing all ties is an extremely hostile movement. Next step, as China has already hinted towards, is actions in China against Apple. And we don't know how further the escalation will go. So far, any ambition of China towards Taiwan has been limited by the fact that China depends quite on Taiwanese fabs. Remove that, and accidents might happen... which would harm the whole world.
- someperson 6y ago
  This won't kill Huawei at all, and instead of manufacturing chips with TSMC, won't they'll just switch their HiSilicon Kirin chip manufacturing to SMICs' 14nm process? I know it's no longer useful to compare process node sizes between companies anymore, but for what it's worth Intel is still stuck on 14nm and they're still considered by many a competitive chip-making titan. Also remember when United States pulled a similar stunt on ZTE a few years ago (banning us of American parts), only to reach an agreement and walk back the decision?
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    I don't think Huawei is going to be killed at all, the state will intervene if necessary. The newer Kirin chips are fabbed on TSMC 7nm as far as I am aware, so switching them back to some larger process isn't really possible in a practical sense. But Huawei will find a solution. I am far more concerned about the globel impact of such a nasty trade war. And anything harming TSMC will harm us all, as too many things depend on their 7nm process.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    > his won't kill Huawei at all The goal isn't to kill Huawei... it's to make sure that Huawei 5G tech is delayed by 1 or 2 years. Banning their already-designed chips from shipping is a good way to delay them by a year or two. Most of the USA doesn't even have 5G deployed yet, and the US is hoping local manufacturers will get the local market as well as lots of the world market.
cesarb 6y ago
Suppose the actors were different: wouldn't this be like, for instance, Germany forbidding a Brazilian company from exporting a widget it manufactured to the USA, just because the Brazilian company had used a German-made lathe in its Brazilian factory to make the widget?
- Traster 6y ago
  I don't think you can talk about this in terms of just rules. What is happening here is one world superpower is using all the leverage it can to attack another world power. Germany isn't going to do this firstly because it doesn't have the leverage and secondly because they're not interested in playing that sort of raw power politics. This is how cold wars are conducted, the belligerents pour resources into strategically important partners. In this case the US is applying pressure on TSMC to damage Chinese technology companies, which they need to do because their local strategic manufacturer(Intel) is falling behind. You're going to continue to see the US find reasons to pour money into partnerships with everyone on China's front door. Meanwhile China will pour resources into partnerships with Europe, Russia and Australia to try and pry US partners away. There's no "Fair" in this situation, there's only "Winning" by forcing China into compliance with US demands.
  - Udik 6y ago
    > forcing China into compliance with US demands. Except that, as it's clear from the rest of your comment (with which I agree fully) there are no real demands from the US to China except a demand for subalternity. In other words, the only reason behind this moralising and chest-beating is simply that the US wants to keep its power by obstructing a competitor.
tanilama 6y ago
TSMC had denied this through Chinese media. Might need to wait for sometime to see exactly what its position in all these. My bet it will eventually comply but leave some vagueness here and there. After all, hurting TSMC is hurting the world.
- Nokinside 6y ago
  The timing of this with the mixed messages makes me think that Washington tried to dupe TSMC/Taiwan. Washington waited until the new fab deal was done before putting TSMC into crossfire. If that's the case, it probably backfires and the US must make hard choices.
whoevercares 6y ago
Good move for China. Time to spawn our own IC industry
ekianjo 6y ago
Technically it should not be an issue since Taiwan does not exist on paper and therefore China's CCP should have no problem asserting full control over TSMC operations. At least if we believe the CCP's version of the world.
- tinza123 6y ago
  Taiwan is a region and a very important one, no one was denying that, even the Chinese government. The dispute was on what a country means and it has complicated historical reasons on both sides. Same thing goes for why Guam and California are not the same political entities among the US, or why Spain doesn't recognize Catalonia. Don't be ignorant and try to judge on things you don't fully understand.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > Don't be ignorant and try to judge on things you don't fully understand. The first bit was ok, but this is uncalled for.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    The UN is pretty clear on the fact that populations can claim to be governed by themselves if there are enough of them. Which is exactly what is happening with Taiwan. What is so difficult to understand?
strooper 6y ago
China has already bought the second (Russia) and third world (not in terms of wealth, rather actual third world) with the cheap variants of original technologies. Intellectual property is meaningless in this arena, and so is reasoning. Moreover, America has stopped streaming the "American dream", stopped winning "friends and allies", and is flexing muscles on the rest of the world. I thought this war of the giants will remain paused for the rest of the covid-19 situation, however, it seems unlikely before some major causality. And Huawei seems to be in the center of the stage.
russli1993 6y ago
“Despite the Entity List actions the Department took last year, Huawei and its foreign affiliates have stepped-up efforts to undermine these national security-based restrictions through an indigenization effort. However, that effort is still dependent on U.S. technologies,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “This is not how a responsible global corporate citizen behaves. We must amend our rules exploited by Huawei and HiSilicon and prevent U.S. technologies from enabling malign activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.” What? You just tried to bankrupt company by cutting off all of their suppliers and partners of business. Of course they will try to survive by trying to self-reliant. The company employs 100,000 people, is super important to the local economy and employment in the shenzhen area, and has over 50% of the shares in China's entire core internet infrastructure. If Huawei does not get the supply it needs, it cannot serve the entire China's core internet, do you know how much danger that causes to China's communication infrastructure security? How much economic damage to the country it's going to be? This actually directly harms China's national security. Whereas the US claims Huawei harms its national security, when Huawei is not even in the US. When Huawei gets killed off, how do you tell the workers of Huawei and their families, that their livelihood is gone because by its killed of by you, which is a foreign government to them. Are you sure you can deal with the anti-American sentiment afterwards. There is a saying in Chinese "cut of the way someone earns money is equal to killing their parents" （断人财路如杀人父母）You also know that the average Chinese person is super proud of Huawei as a brand right? This rule change effectively forces all companies in the world that is in the semiconductor industry to abide by US governments wishes. TSMC 7nm processes has less then 10% of US IP and technology. It was developed by Taiwan people with TSMC own investment. But they invariably could use a technology that is in the ERA. Hell, Intel processors is one, and god forbid if the production line has a computer that contains Intel chips. You could argue that this Intel chip assisted in producing Huawei's chip no? Where do you draw the line? The US government can just decide how to enforce this based on their feelings of the day? Are you sure this the standard for international justice? For alleged IP infringement against Huawei, get the evidence and sue the company at court. I am all for it, as long as there is trial. So far there are two cases IP infringement cases that I know of, 1 in 2003 with Cisco that settled out of court. 2 with T-mobile in 2013 with regarding a phone testing arm. But Huawei's main business is base bands, routers, and consumer electronics. By the way, Ercission has cross licence agreement with Huawei to access Huawei's 5G patents. Huawei has many invention patents in 5G, that is recognized globally. I don't get where the theft of IP comes from that warrant the company to be killed off. For security issues. Let the market decide, let the customer decide. Customer should be able to make a comprehensive product selection process based on their needs. And if the market says no to Huawei, then Huawei is dead. But let the market decide. US companies can also compete with Huawei, and say they are more secure. Huawei sucks. That is all fine. And I am also fine with the US government producing security assessments on Huawei, and telling every country on earth to not use Huawei equipment. That is US government's right. But at least the customer can decide for themselves if Huawei is worth anything. If Huawei is dead because of that, then sure. Its all fair and square. The US can also form alliances with other countries and make sure the country ban Huawei equipment in their countries too. That is the US right too. There are so many ways to compete with Huawei. US gov's action is as if, China ordered that every country in the world shall not do business with Microsoft, and forces Microsoft to go bankrupt right now. Imagine if the Microsoft cloud and office365 stops running because of that. US would probably sent warplanes to China by then. Huawei's 4G technology worked really well for China's environment and was affordable for mass development. It is key enabler in allowing the country to deploy 4G to almost everywhere in China, even the remote villages. This enabled everyone with smartphone to use the internet. And as result, services like mobile payment, shopping, gaming all flourished in China. It in turns create a massive cellphone market in China. Apple, Qualcomn, Xllinx, and host of consumer product providers, or Huawei's US suppliers all benefited from this. Competitions in the phone space also pushed the innovation and pricing for smart phones. Huawei was one of the first to push smartphone camera quality and added multi-focal lengths to phones. It pushed Apple and Samsung to innovate on cameras too, look at where smartphone photography has become. I believe US and Chinese technology companies can work together in their respective markets, to make technology more useful, enrich the economy, and make people's lives better. Its not a zero sum game. But the US government is viewing it as such. If US wants to win, China must lose. With the US government essentially taking the world's companies into hostage in killing off Huawei, I am not sure if US Gov is being a responsible world citizen.

174 points by therealchiggs 6y ago

DevKoala 6y ago

I always thought that enforcing IP rights overseas was a pipe dream. Amazing.

est 6y ago
How is Huawei violating America's IP exactly? Huawei stole 5G from US?
- DevKoala 6y ago
  This is one of the most famous accounts: https://www.secureworldexpo.com/industry-news/8-steps-huawei-steals-t-mobile-intellectual-property https://www.secureworldexpo.com/industry-news/8-steps-huawei...
- snovv_crash 6y ago
  They sold tech to Iran despite embargoes.
  - oblio 6y ago
    And that's violating IP exactly how? :-)
    - snovv_crash 6y ago
      The tech that they sold included US IP. So now they fall under some of the same embargo rules.

forgot_again 6y ago

Escalation between the US and China is inevitable. China is fundamentally opposed to everything the US and Democracies around the world stand for politically. Likewise, the US and friends are fundamentally opposed to everything China stands for politically. There is no Universe in which two diametrically opposed juggernauts do not come into conflict. Conflict is simply inevitable when the stakes are this high and there is no greater power able to force deescalation. Either China converts to Democracy or the US and friends adopt Chinese style authoritarianism, or one of the two belligerents collapses either on its own in the manner of the Soviet Union, or by force.

fermienrico 6y ago
By some theory of games, mutual destruction between two opposing parties when they are aware of it simply doesn't happen. In addition, when one party knows that they are weaker than the opposing party, conflict cannot happen as the weaker party never escalates. So, Wars in modern age of information are hard to come by since we have a tremendous amount of surveillance and global recon.
- euix 6y ago
  It's not about tanks or numbers its national resolve and there each side can vastly misread the other. Each side believes it has greater resolve and is in the right. There is no quantitative way to measure this. The only way to to find out is to fight. Just like two people who size each other up, one may be bigger or faster but the will to prevail and willingness to bare any sacrifice and tolerate pain in order to achieve victory is intangible and cannot be known until it is tested. I fear the future will be dark in our lifetime.
  - bsder 6y ago
    > It's not about tanks or numbers its national resolve and there each side can vastly misread the other. Agreed, but to be perfectly honest, I would be 100% happy to see the US pull all manufacturing out of China and put it back on US soil. The US has gained a temporary price reduction in labor that is now evaporating, gained no access to the Chinese market or influenced China to open further, and has lost the actual ability to manufacture far too many goods. If that means things will get more automated because of expensive labor, great! Then we should build our own robots, too. If things will get more expensive, then perhaps we will start throwing things away less and start worrying about longevity more. And, you know, the US has a lot of unemployed people who will need jobs very shortly.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      And who in the US will do the work? It's not just the jobs that went overseas, it's also the factories, the molds, and the skills, on top of that we all apparently want cheap stuff.

augustt 6y ago

Wow. Can someone more familiar with stuff explain how much of a big deal this is? Does this completely kneecap Huawei/China?

dannyw 6y ago
In the immediate future, Huawei will be fine: > Huawei has been preparing for such a move by the U.S. since the end of last year, including stockpiling more than a year's worth of networking equipment-related chips, especially for its crucial telecom equipment and carrier business, sources told Nikkei Asian Review.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  And in the distant future, all common chips and designs will be made without the US.
- cobookman 6y ago
  Wouldn't Huawei not be able to sell devices made with those chips in western markets due to the restriction?
dirtyid 6y ago
Huawei shifted Hisilicon 14nm orders from TSMC to SMIC a month ago in anticipation. I think most of their router hardware is domestic components except from Xilinx FGPAs, but alternatives are difficult to source. The articles mention Huawei's been stockpiling components, it's hard to say how long that will last. Last I read they've already burned through a bunch and they've been rolling out domestic 5G during covid19. There should still be enough runway for a few political exchanges i.e. putting US companies on Chinese unreliable entity list to see what happens. This is a "bigger" move than expected - the anticipated escalation was US reducing US origin tech % to <10. TSMC believes their 7nm was around 9-10% so there was a chance Huawei orders was still viable. Now it's a blanket export license requirement. While the article only covers Huawei, I think it's a broader blanket that applies to all Chinese companies with military connections, which is basically an impossibly difficult task for any company to determine. The impact is unclear. This is one move short of kicking Huawei off dollar trading.

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trixie_ 6y ago

Can we get the TSMC fab built in America first before stirring things up?

dannyw 6y ago
TSMC's fab is in Taiwan, not PRC. Given the critical nature of semiconductors, if China invaded Taiwan it's hard to see the US not getting involved. TSMC is Taiwan's largest company.
- trixie_ 6y ago
  I know it's in Taiwan, and if this escalates, the supply chain will get cut. When it comes to 'invasion', there's no chance of defending Taiwan unfortunately. No one has the stomach for that. It's easily one step away from a nuclear war. You think coronavirus is bad...
  - dannyw 6y ago
    The threat of nuclear war goes both ways: the impact of nuclear on discouraging the defence of Taiwan is equally applicable on discouraging the invasion of Taiwan.
    - trixie_ 6y ago
      No one is having a nuclear war over Taiwan. It's important, but not that important. If China invaded Taiwan, the US would not defend it. Super powers don't go to war. They have wars through proxy countries. If super powers did go to war, it would be nuclear war, and it would be bad.
      - deleted 6y ago
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      - someperson 6y ago
        For what it's worth, the invasion of Taiwan is considered by military planners to be an important flash point for World War 3. It would be bloody, and very likely nuclear, and pull in nearby nations like Japan, and will likely end with hundreds of millions (possibly billions) dead.

billfruit 6y ago

"All non-U. S. chip manufacturers using American chipmaking equipment, intellectual property or design software will have to apply for a license before shipping chips to Huawei." Isn't that really crossing the line; It implies that if a country buys American Equipment/Software then they are at the whims of American policy; American equipment comes with strings attached: Really does not look appealing to many countries this. What if Huawei rebrand themselves or try to gain a new identity etc, then US regulations has to catch up again. Moreover is this some sort of punitive measure against Huawei? What if they approach US courts, what shall be the outcome?

dannyw 6y ago
I mean, if you do business in China and recognise Taiwan, you will be shown the door and/or your. business will be literally stolen, so... it's not really different. It's about time we start making China accountable. It's about time we start blocking Tencent and Alibaba from further American acquisition or investment. It's about time we restrict and throttle CCP-controlled media platforms like Tiktok; the same way China does for Western-owned media platforms. We can't keep getting punched and just stand still.
- addicted 6y ago
  The problem with your argument is that for the vast majority of the world the US, and American companies, have spied far more on their communications, and manipulated far more do their politics than anything China has done. So if those are the calculations the US starts forcing countries to make, the most likely impact will be on American companies before anyone touches the Chinese (largely also because it’s American companies that dominate the internet around the world, and not the Chinese, and restricting internet services will be far easier than physical products for most countries).
  - mlindner 6y ago
    Except the US doesn't enforce US companies to delete and censor specific content in other countries. China's human values are restrictive, US human values are highly tolerant.

jacquesm 6y ago

And thus enables the Chinese semiconductor industry.

azinman2 6y ago
Do you think the timelines would really be any different?
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Yes, this will be a huge accelerator. The US is showing China that they can not depend on foundries they do not own lock, stock and barrel and that are on Chinese soil. It's totally obvious what this will lead to. Next: restrictions on selling stepper tech to the Chinese. Wonder how ASML's stock will respond to this news, quite a few reasons to go either way.
dannyw 6y ago
The Chinese semiconductor industry is going to happen no matter what; it is one of their strategic priorities and they have been moving in this direction for a long time. This is about making it harder and inflicting some pain on them.
- cobookman 6y ago
  Just to back it up with a source: https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-pursuit-semiconductor-independence https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-pursuit-semiconductor-i...
- jacquesm 6y ago
  The effect will be the exact opposite, it will make it harder and will inflict some pain on them in the short term, but in the longer term any internal resistance has just evaporated and they will double down on this.
  - deleted 6y ago
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synaesthesisx 6y ago

As someone long Qualcomm this is excellent news.

dannyw 6y ago
Why? Qualcomm is a US company, subject to the same export restrictions.
- ac29 6y ago
  Huawei is a competitor in the mobile SoC field.
- lwneal 6y ago
  Qualcomm and Huawei are both "fabless" semiconductor companies, like NVidia or AMD. These companies design chips, but do not own foundries to manufacture them. TSMC is a "pure-play foundry", a company that does not design chips, but only manufactures chips that other companies have designed. TSMC is the largest and most advanced foundry. Huawei (a Chinese company) and Qualcomm (a US company) both design modems[1]. Huawei and Qualcomm both need TSMC's fabs, or else they will not be able to manufacture their most advanced designs. If Huawei can't buy from TSMC, then new Huawei modems will have to be manufactured with inferior or more expensive alternatives. With Huawei chips now more expensive or less performant, products designed by Qualcomm will be better in comparison. Presumably, this will cause Qualcomm's stock to rise in value, although it may be a net negative for the worldwide economy. See also the recent announcement that TSMC reached an agreement with the US government to move some of its production to Arizona [2]. [1] Huawei's Kirin/Balong chips directly compete with Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips: both are currently manufactured on TSMC's 7nm process. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23187698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23187698
DevKoala 6y ago
Doesn't Qualcomm lose all future revenue coming from Huawei in this scenario? Please explain.
- synaesthesisx 6y ago

fermienrico 6y ago

To preface, firstly - I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other. The problem starts when there is a massive asymmetry in the trade. China has completely blocked US services from Google to Uber, and gladly accepts manufacturing investment - Tesla Shanghai factory, Intel's Chengdu factory, etc. because the CCP knows that they will gain tremendously by having IP physically based in China. It leaks like a sieve. I've seen it first hand (in semiconductor industry). America should protect its own interests and interests of other democratic nations before they get eroded, dismantled and sold off to CCP's interests. If China doesn't want American software services running and fairly competing because of CCP surveillance requirements, well...then the US should block all Chinese services from exploiting users[1] and their data, may be EU should block Chinese services from running there until there is strict GDPR requirements and the data is located in EU datacenters. There should be independent datacenter security audits just like CCP wants keys to iCloud datacenters. That would just get us to the fairness level and that's still not enough - there should be a reverse asymmetry to make up for last 20 years of damage - incentivize US/EU services and manfuacturing while simultaneously imposing sanctions and import duties on goods/services made in China. Why not? Can someone tell me why the US/EU shouldn't do the same? I should not be able to buy $1.99 USB cable including shipping from China. [1] https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/

dntbnmpls 6y ago
> To preface, firstly - I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other. "To preface", "As an X", etc are easy tells that you really aren't what you claim. Just say what you want rather than defensively qualifying it. Most of us here see right through it and it's a waste of bits. > America should protect its own interests and interests of other democratic nations before they get eroded Then we wouldn't be bullying other democratic nations by telling them who they can or cannot trade with. Also, I wish we'd stop with the "democracy" nonsense considering how many democracies we've attacked/overthrown in our history - the most recent being bolivia. Also, "CCP" is a dead giveaway of propaganda/bias. I don't think I've seen "CCP" as much as I've seen in the last few weeks. It's like everyone at propaganda camp got the same memo. > Can someone tell me why the US/EU shouldn't do the same? Can you tell me what "US/EU" is? Isn't the EU their own political entity? Your comment, like so many comments on social media reek of anti-"CCP" propaganda. I believe in protectionism and I agree that you shouldn't be able to buy a $1.99 USB cable from china, mexico, india or EU or anywhere else. The US should set up tariffs on all products against all countries to protect american workers and reindustrialize. Not selectively use protectionism to attack one single nation which doesn't help any american worker. It seems like most of the "pro-american" commenters are foreigners who want to hurt china rather than help america. It's amazing how many "americans" online supported moving jobs from china to india rather than back to the US. Globalism has been a disaster for workers, environment, etc. Everything from climate change to coronavirus pandemic is due to globalism. I've always felt a more national or even regional trading is appropriate. Why doesn't the EU have their own google, facebook, etc? Why doesn't india? Why doesn't japan? Why are we manufacturing the iphone in china? Tariffs/protectionism should be used by nations to protect their workers and industries. In order for that to happen, globalism has to die. This "I am a supporter of free global trade and greater collaboration between countries to maximize the benefit of each other." does not align with everything else you wrote. If you truly believed that, you'd be praising china since they are doing exactly that.

salimmadjd 6y ago

Anyone else feels this is shortsighted? Estimates are that China is 10 years away to be able to build chips domestically that can compete with TSMC. Mostly because a lot of the precision chip making technologies are hard to make and are only made by a few manufactures and their exports are controlled. However, I feel like our new competitive mindset is using the wall to block others. To wall off China to wall off immigrants. I love to see manufacturing sector return to US and protect US jobs, however, it seems like instead of investing into the future, like we had in the 50s, 60s, 70s we are spending our limited resources waging all types of wars and then using our might to block other countries now. We've lost our ability to make political decisions and planning with a long-term vision, and if we think building walls will stop innovation in other places, we're wrong. All we're doing is setting back China for a few years, fueling a nationalistic fervor to motivate their public even more and once they've caught up, they'll even be stronger and more competitive. While we might keep the aging Western Europe under our pressure, rest of the emerging world will be under China. I'm also really curious how this action will ultimately impact Taiwanese views of merging with China. It's possible this might create more sympathy and create a massive defeat for the nationalist side of Taiwan and the country might vote to merge with China. What would we do then? Stop Apple from buying chips from TSMC?

NonEUCitizen 6y ago
Just a note on the word "nationalist" re: Taiwan. It's confusing to most, but in Taiwan, "nationalist" is the pro-China faction, due to historical association of that term with the KMT. "Green," pro-independence, or "TI" (Taiwan Independence) would be the less confusing term for the side you think might lose with this development. The TI side has been winning bigly in the past year thanks to Xi Jinping and Carrie Lam's treatment of Hong Kong, and to China's and WHO's lack of transparency in the early days of COVID-19.
- GenericsMotors 6y ago
  >Just a note on the word "nationalist" re: Taiwan. It's confusing to most, but in Taiwan, "nationalist" is the pro-China faction, due to historical association of that term with the KMT. >"Green," pro-independence, or "TI" (Taiwan Independence) would be the less confusing term for the side you think might lose with this development. TIL, thanks for sharing!

chvid 6y ago

By the looks of it, this is major news and a big escalation of the US China "trade" war. But I notice this: "TSMC shares in Taiwan were down more than 2% in Monday morning trade, while the benchmark index was down less than 1%." So the market seems to think that is probably not such a big deal or guesses that a solution/workaround will be found. Also that the US may cut-off TSMC supplies to Huawei has been rumoured for about a year now and is an extension of the restrictions on Google software/services and the ARM chip designs.

wbraun 6y ago

What are the near term implications of this? I was under the impression that this was always considered a pretty extreme option. Between this and the plans for the TSMC fab in the USA I wonder what suddenly shifted in US - Taiwan relations. Does this mean that Huawei loses the 5G competition because they are not going to be able to get the chips they need fabricated? Is China going to try to split up Huawei into a bunch of "totally not Huawei" companies?

teruakohatu 6y ago
I am sure 5G chips can be built with older processes. They might just need more cooling and be less efficient.
- kyboren 6y ago
  That makes Huawei's 5G chips much less commercially competitive, giving Qualcomm a leg up in the handset market and making it much harder for Huawei to win. However, for base stations, which are the real prize, Huawei already has a ~1y stockpile of Xilinx FPGAs, so any effects on Huawei's 5G market position will take some time to manifest.

ngcc_hk 6y ago

Let us all free trade for all, but not china can trade with works but the world cannot trade with China.

_ph_ 6y ago

This is a disaster and can get ugly very quickly. Whatever the concerns of the USA against Huawei are, trying to destroy the company by pressuring international companies in severing all ties is an extremely hostile movement. Next step, as China has already hinted towards, is actions in China against Apple. And we don't know how further the escalation will go. So far, any ambition of China towards Taiwan has been limited by the fact that China depends quite on Taiwanese fabs. Remove that, and accidents might happen... which would harm the whole world.

someperson 6y ago
This won't kill Huawei at all, and instead of manufacturing chips with TSMC, won't they'll just switch their HiSilicon Kirin chip manufacturing to SMICs' 14nm process? I know it's no longer useful to compare process node sizes between companies anymore, but for what it's worth Intel is still stuck on 14nm and they're still considered by many a competitive chip-making titan. Also remember when United States pulled a similar stunt on ZTE a few years ago (banning us of American parts), only to reach an agreement and walk back the decision?
- _ph_ 6y ago
  I don't think Huawei is going to be killed at all, the state will intervene if necessary. The newer Kirin chips are fabbed on TSMC 7nm as far as I am aware, so switching them back to some larger process isn't really possible in a practical sense. But Huawei will find a solution. I am far more concerned about the globel impact of such a nasty trade war. And anything harming TSMC will harm us all, as too many things depend on their 7nm process.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  > his won't kill Huawei at all The goal isn't to kill Huawei... it's to make sure that Huawei 5G tech is delayed by 1 or 2 years. Banning their already-designed chips from shipping is a good way to delay them by a year or two. Most of the USA doesn't even have 5G deployed yet, and the US is hoping local manufacturers will get the local market as well as lots of the world market.

cesarb 6y ago

Suppose the actors were different: wouldn't this be like, for instance, Germany forbidding a Brazilian company from exporting a widget it manufactured to the USA, just because the Brazilian company had used a German-made lathe in its Brazilian factory to make the widget?

Traster 6y ago
I don't think you can talk about this in terms of just rules. What is happening here is one world superpower is using all the leverage it can to attack another world power. Germany isn't going to do this firstly because it doesn't have the leverage and secondly because they're not interested in playing that sort of raw power politics. This is how cold wars are conducted, the belligerents pour resources into strategically important partners. In this case the US is applying pressure on TSMC to damage Chinese technology companies, which they need to do because their local strategic manufacturer(Intel) is falling behind. You're going to continue to see the US find reasons to pour money into partnerships with everyone on China's front door. Meanwhile China will pour resources into partnerships with Europe, Russia and Australia to try and pry US partners away. There's no "Fair" in this situation, there's only "Winning" by forcing China into compliance with US demands.
- Udik 6y ago
  > forcing China into compliance with US demands. Except that, as it's clear from the rest of your comment (with which I agree fully) there are no real demands from the US to China except a demand for subalternity. In other words, the only reason behind this moralising and chest-beating is simply that the US wants to keep its power by obstructing a competitor.

tanilama 6y ago

TSMC had denied this through Chinese media. Might need to wait for sometime to see exactly what its position in all these. My bet it will eventually comply but leave some vagueness here and there. After all, hurting TSMC is hurting the world.

Nokinside 6y ago
The timing of this with the mixed messages makes me think that Washington tried to dupe TSMC/Taiwan. Washington waited until the new fab deal was done before putting TSMC into crossfire. If that's the case, it probably backfires and the US must make hard choices.

whoevercares 6y ago

Good move for China. Time to spawn our own IC industry

ekianjo 6y ago

Technically it should not be an issue since Taiwan does not exist on paper and therefore China's CCP should have no problem asserting full control over TSMC operations. At least if we believe the CCP's version of the world.

tinza123 6y ago
Taiwan is a region and a very important one, no one was denying that, even the Chinese government. The dispute was on what a country means and it has complicated historical reasons on both sides. Same thing goes for why Guam and California are not the same political entities among the US, or why Spain doesn't recognize Catalonia. Don't be ignorant and try to judge on things you don't fully understand.
- oblio 6y ago
  > Don't be ignorant and try to judge on things you don't fully understand. The first bit was ok, but this is uncalled for.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  The UN is pretty clear on the fact that populations can claim to be governed by themselves if there are enough of them. Which is exactly what is happening with Taiwan. What is so difficult to understand?

strooper 6y ago

China has already bought the second (Russia) and third world (not in terms of wealth, rather actual third world) with the cheap variants of original technologies. Intellectual property is meaningless in this arena, and so is reasoning. Moreover, America has stopped streaming the "American dream", stopped winning "friends and allies", and is flexing muscles on the rest of the world. I thought this war of the giants will remain paused for the rest of the covid-19 situation, however, it seems unlikely before some major causality. And Huawei seems to be in the center of the stage.

russli1993 6y ago

“Despite the Entity List actions the Department took last year, Huawei and its foreign affiliates have stepped-up efforts to undermine these national security-based restrictions through an indigenization effort. However, that effort is still dependent on U.S. technologies,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “This is not how a responsible global corporate citizen behaves. We must amend our rules exploited by Huawei and HiSilicon and prevent U.S. technologies from enabling malign activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests.” What? You just tried to bankrupt company by cutting off all of their suppliers and partners of business. Of course they will try to survive by trying to self-reliant. The company employs 100,000 people, is super important to the local economy and employment in the shenzhen area, and has over 50% of the shares in China's entire core internet infrastructure. If Huawei does not get the supply it needs, it cannot serve the entire China's core internet, do you know how much danger that causes to China's communication infrastructure security? How much economic damage to the country it's going to be? This actually directly harms China's national security. Whereas the US claims Huawei harms its national security, when Huawei is not even in the US. When Huawei gets killed off, how do you tell the workers of Huawei and their families, that their livelihood is gone because by its killed of by you, which is a foreign government to them. Are you sure you can deal with the anti-American sentiment afterwards. There is a saying in Chinese "cut of the way someone earns money is equal to killing their parents" （断人财路如杀人父母）You also know that the average Chinese person is super proud of Huawei as a brand right? This rule change effectively forces all companies in the world that is in the semiconductor industry to abide by US governments wishes. TSMC 7nm processes has less then 10% of US IP and technology. It was developed by Taiwan people with TSMC own investment. But they invariably could use a technology that is in the ERA. Hell, Intel processors is one, and god forbid if the production line has a computer that contains Intel chips. You could argue that this Intel chip assisted in producing Huawei's chip no? Where do you draw the line? The US government can just decide how to enforce this based on their feelings of the day? Are you sure this the standard for international justice? For alleged IP infringement against Huawei, get the evidence and sue the company at court. I am all for it, as long as there is trial. So far there are two cases IP infringement cases that I know of, 1 in 2003 with Cisco that settled out of court. 2 with T-mobile in 2013 with regarding a phone testing arm. But Huawei's main business is base bands, routers, and consumer electronics. By the way, Ercission has cross licence agreement with Huawei to access Huawei's 5G patents. Huawei has many invention patents in 5G, that is recognized globally. I don't get where the theft of IP comes from that warrant the company to be killed off. For security issues. Let the market decide, let the customer decide. Customer should be able to make a comprehensive product selection process based on their needs. And if the market says no to Huawei, then Huawei is dead. But let the market decide. US companies can also compete with Huawei, and say they are more secure. Huawei sucks. That is all fine. And I am also fine with the US government producing security assessments on Huawei, and telling every country on earth to not use Huawei equipment. That is US government's right. But at least the customer can decide for themselves if Huawei is worth anything. If Huawei is dead because of that, then sure. Its all fair and square. The US can also form alliances with other countries and make sure the country ban Huawei equipment in their countries too. That is the US right too. There are so many ways to compete with Huawei. US gov's action is as if, China ordered that every country in the world shall not do business with Microsoft, and forces Microsoft to go bankrupt right now. Imagine if the Microsoft cloud and office365 stops running because of that. US would probably sent warplanes to China by then. Huawei's 4G technology worked really well for China's environment and was affordable for mass development. It is key enabler in allowing the country to deploy 4G to almost everywhere in China, even the remote villages. This enabled everyone with smartphone to use the internet. And as result, services like mobile payment, shopping, gaming all flourished in China. It in turns create a massive cellphone market in China. Apple, Qualcomn, Xllinx, and host of consumer product providers, or Huawei's US suppliers all benefited from this. Competitions in the phone space also pushed the innovation and pricing for smart phones. Huawei was one of the first to push smartphone camera quality and added multi-focal lengths to phones. It pushed Apple and Samsung to innovate on cameras too, look at where smartphone photography has become. I believe US and Chinese technology companies can work together in their respective markets, to make technology more useful, enrich the economy, and make people's lives better. Its not a zero sum game. But the US government is viewing it as such. If US wants to win, China must lose. With the US government essentially taking the world's companies into hostage in killing off Huawei, I am not sure if US Gov is being a responsible world citizen.