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Qualcomm says its current licenses to export chips to Huawei not impacted
Cao Qingqing
Qualcomm's exhibition booth at China International Fair for Trade in Services, September 3, 2022, Beijing, China. /CFP
Qualcomm's exhibition booth at China International Fair for Trade in Services, September 3, 2022, Beijing, China. /CFP

Qualcomm's exhibition booth at China International Fair for Trade in Services, September 3, 2022, Beijing, China. /CFP

American tech company Qualcomm said on Friday that it had not heard anything from the U.S. Commerce Department about the latest restrictions on Chinese telecom giant Huawei, and its current licenses to export 4G, Wi-Fi and other chips to Huawei will not be impacted and will continue for "some number of years."

"I don't think it's fair to characterize it as the latest restrictions on Huawei. What we've seen are news reports to the effect that Commerce (Department) is considering not issuing new licenses to Huawei. And we haven't heard anything from Commerce (Department) itself," said Alex Rogers, president of Qualcomm Technology Licensing and Global Affairs, during the company's earnings call.

Several media, including Bloomberg and Reuters, reported earlier this week that the Biden administration had stopped approving licenses for U.S. companies to export most items to Huawei, including those below the 5G level, such as items for 4G, Wifi 6 and 7, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and cloud, citing people familiar with the matter.

Huawei has already faced U.S. export restrictions around items for 5G since 2019, when the Trump administration added it to a blacklist called the "entity list," citing national security concerns.

"Qualcomm has a set of licenses that we've had for a while that basically allow us to ship 4G and other chipsets, including WiFi to Huawei. Those licenses were issued because Commerce reached the determination that they don't affect national security issues,” he said.

"Those will continue for some number of years. And so within the scope of those licenses, we don't see an impact," he added.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Tuesday that China strongly opposes "the U.S.'s unscrupulous and unjustified suppression of Chinese companies by stretching the concept of national security and abusing state power."

"Such moves violate the principle of market economy and international trade rules, dampen international confidence in the U.S. business environment and amount to sheer sci-tech hegemonism," she said, adding that China will continue to work for the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies. 

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