The Economist: The U.S. war on Huawei backfired

Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei has been "under attack" from the U.S. for over a decade, yet the company became a "bigger" worry for the American politicians than before, said British news outlet The Economist in a recent analysis.

The analysis, titled "America's assassination attempt on Huawei is backfiring," explained how the U.S. sanctions limited Huawei's development but only in short terms. Since 2019 when the sanctions escalated, Huawei has been diverting its supply chain away from the West and turned to in-house and domestic suppliers. As a result, the company launched new smartphones like the Mate 60 series and the Pura 70 series, which helped the company occupy roughly the same market as Apple's iPhones in China.

On the consumer software side, Huawei's own HarmonyOS software is posing to become a main rival to Android. In the carrier and enterprise market, the company remains a major global power.

Basically, the U.S. sanctions forced Huawei to become more self-reliant and integrated, which is giving the company a competitive edge against rivals like Apple, Cisco and Ericsson.

The "backfiring" narrative of The Economist fits exactly into what the Chinese have been warning about potential negative effects of U.S. sanctions.

China's Foreign Ministry has, time and time again, talked about how the U.S. overstretched the concept of national security to bully foreign companies. Because of the bilateral nature of trade, such behavior will inevitably hurt the U.S. itself.

The Economist said the "bigger lesson" from Huawei's torment has not yet sunk in that "cutting the firm off from Western technology did not stifle it, but instead increased its incentives to innovate."