Ericsson warns investors: This Biden fellow coming into the White House may look to resolve China trade dispute...

Swedish telco and network provider Ericsson has warned investors that a potential thawing in relations between the US and China caused by a change of regime in Washington could hurt its bottom line. “Ongoing geopolitical and trade uncertainty from a range of factors may have a material adverse impact on Ericsson’s business, …

[Dippywood]

...so far no evidence has come to light that proves Trump's assertions.

Now why does that sound familiar?

[Snake]

Re: ...so far no evidence has come to light that proves Trump's assertions.

Hey, I did try to warn you.

[_LC_]

Hint:

It wasn't Trump that controlled the military. The attempts to start a new Cold War on China didn't originate from the orange monkey either. Hence, this is not going to stop. I predict the contrary - it is going to get worse.

[IGotOut]

Re: Hint:

So who does control the military if not the head of the military?

[_LC_]

Re: Hint:

Pretending to be naive? Why am I not surprised. Remember when the idiot wanted to withdraw troops from Afghanistan? He was stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hint:

Did he? I remember he talked about it, but he did say quite a few things he didn't follow through with, if you recall.

Was stopped / changed his mind on / forgot all about / blustered without ever planning to do. Which one to pick?

[DrXym]

Re: Hint:

He wasn't stopped. He lost interest. That is because he is an easily distracted mercurial idiot. If something can't be done fast enough and involves (*gasp) details & nuance, then he shifts to the next thing.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Hint:

And that's when he's not just being a puppet for one of the plutocratic interests with influence over him.

[Anonymous Coward]

@IGotOut - Re: Hint:

Tail wagguing the dog.

[Paul Herber]

Re: Hint:

Have you not heard of the elite, socialist, deep-state media?

<sarcasm>

[Geoffrey W]

Re: Hint:

I have! They kill and eat children from shithole countries (i.e. not the USA), after having had their nefarious ways with them and using their blood for life extending experiments! Everyone knows this. Now the Democrats are within grasp of power they are making plans to come for USA babies too as the supply is easier to come by, and the parents are worthless except as money making fodder. Ask any Q warrior.

[alain williams]

It is more than a trade war

There are aspects of world political dominance. China has become an economic super power, that has given it the clout to throw political weight around and worry less about the consequences, think: Hong Kong, Uighurs Muslims, actions against Taiwan, ... There is a strong direction of travel and we need to look at where that will go to in 20, 50, 100 years time.

I know that the USA has bullied as well, but it is politically much freer than China. You can say things in front of the White House that would have you removed if you said similar in Tiananmen Square.

Decisions like this have many more facets than first meet the eye.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It is more than a trade war

Hasn't it been this way ever since China got nuclear weapons?

[[e-mail]]

Re: It is more than a trade war

"You can say things in front of the White House that would have you removed if you said similar in Tiananmen Square."

*ALL* lives matter. If you feel the need to put a colour in place of the 'all', then *YOU* are the racist.

Try saying that in America - or even here in the UK. If anyone beats you to a pulp over it, 5-gets-you-10 that it won't be your attacker being prosecuted.

[Jamie Jones]

Re: It is more than a trade war

"*ALL* lives matter. If you feel the need to put a colour in place of the 'all', then *YOU* are the racist."

Seriously? The word "Only" is NOT implied in the phrase "black lives matter". I hope you are just ignorant, and nothing more sinister.

If you see people collecting for cancer charities, do you complain that "ALL FATAL ILLNESSES MATTER"?

Why you should stop saying “all lives matter,” explained in 9 different ways

Cambridge expert explains why 'All Lives Matter' completely misses the point

The philosophical flaw in saying “All Lives Matter”

Google for further information.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It is more than a trade war

You assertion may well be right BUT "Black Lives Matter" is an assertion. There is no attempt to imply that any other individuals lives matter - only black ones. Maybe if it wasn't meant the way its all to easily read it should have been written "Black Lives Matter Too"

Just possibly they need to get this message across to their compatriots who remove far more black lives than the blue people do.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: It is more than a trade war

That's an impressive failure to understand language, logic, and rhetoric in just a handful of sentences, friend. You're wasting your time here; with that kind of intellectual deficiency, you should be in politics.

[Anonymous Coward]

@alain williams - Re: It is more than a trade war

Then you will have no difficulty to explain us why the US has the highest inprisonment rate on the planet, both in relative and absolute terms. The abusive non-democratic Chinese regine is at number 131 on the list. Even with all Uighurs, muslims and HK opponents, they make only half of what the democracy model of US can offer.

[rcxb]

Re: @alain williams - It is more than a trade war

explain us why the US has the highest inprisonment rate on the planet

Because China is #1 in executions.

[prh_99]

Re: @alain williams - It is more than a trade war

Let's see, tough on crime politicians writing broad criminal statues designed to be stacked and making the primary means of punishment incarceration. They also lengthened maximum sentences and imposed mandatory minimums on various crimes.

The so called war on drugs that has filled the prison system with non-violent offenders (mostly minority even though white drug use is at similar levels) while failing in it's mission.

School's outsourcing discipline issues to the local police. So issues that use to be handled by the schools with traditional punishments are now (at least in some districts) handled by police and the juvenile justice system.

I am sure there are others.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: @alain williams - It is more than a trade war

Prison-industrial complex. Angela Davis pointed that out 46 years ago. The US has a high incarceration rate primarily because state-sponsored slavery turns out to be more profitable than the pure-private-sector sort.

This is the exception to Eric Williams' thesis that plantation slavery was displaced because capitalism is more economically efficient. Williams was correct in general, but incarcerated labor turns out to be an effective way both to get cheap labor and to transfer money from the government to private industry. So industry applies political pressure to drive up the incarceration rate. The ideological justifications - "tough on crime", "super-predators", War on Drugs - are just there as rhetorical devices.

[Jason Hindle]

Re: It is more than a trade war

"You can say things in front of the White House that would have you removed if you said similar in Tiananmen Square."

Let's hope that still hold true come January.

[jelabarre59]

Re: It is more than a trade war

Not if lord-and-master Commie-la Harris has her way. Gotta be sure to crack down on all that wrong-speak.

[Jamie Jones]

Please be careful, Sweden.

Sweden, please don't piss off Biden, or UK telecommunications companies will be forced to rip out all the Ericsson kit, and replace it with Huawei kit!

[fajensen]

Re: Please be careful, Sweden.

They might have to do that anyway if they want "5G" anytime soon, since Ericsson, or indeed any "western" manufacturer, does not yet have the product depth and range that Huawei has right now!

The pre-Trump business plan for "western telco providers" was to be "system- and component- integrators", to seamlessly integrate the Huawei 5G equipment into the existing networks and management systems, to sell as a complete turn-key solution.

Fat-ass America didn't like that so now everything is a shambles and the pig is being lipsticked and dragged up - rather than doing the sensible thing and telling Uncle Sam to shove it up his fat arse!

I base that on that there are many articles in Swedish technical newspapers coming out about how "The Big, Glorious, Change" will only really come with "6G" and how "5G" is actually only a milestone - meaning that "they" are getting busy whittling down expectations, rebranding "Working 5G" as "6G" and bumping the "Working 5G" delivery to N+10, where N is whatever year they will eventually say that "5G has arrived".

Pathetic!

[StrangerHereMyself]

Understandable

It's understandable that they warn their investors for this, but the chances of Biden reinstating Huawei are very slim. If anything I believe Biden will crack down even harder on China than Trump. Trump merely wanted a good deal, Biden is much more principled in that regard.

[jelabarre59]

Re: Understandable

Biden is much more principled in that regard.

Did you say "Biden" and "principled" in the same sentence? Not unless his senility has addled his brain and made him a reasonable person for once (not bloody likely). I'm sure Commie-la Harris has her marching orders from the CCP.

[Rasslin ' in the mud]

Re: Understandable

Principled?! Shirley you jest.

We're talking about "...the child molesting, woman groping, walking around naked with his sagging a$$ hanging out in front of Secret Service women, China-owned fraud..."

[Chris G]

The statement from Ericsson implies that they don't believe they are sufficiently competitive with Huawei to beat them in the market place.

If they are more expensive, one would hope the product quality would reflect that, basing your success in the market on political whims or manoeuvres is not a sound business plan.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Ericsson is certainly competitive (as is Nokia) but if your competitor is supported by a nation-state who blocks foreign competitors from entering its market, steals competitors trade secrets and copies them and then undercuts your prices because they hardly do any R&D themselves how can anyone compete?

By banning Huawei and any Chinese state-backed company the market will become more competitive and innovative.

[Aitor 1]

Not accurate

That was blamed on Huawei, yet they happen to have a bunch of 5G patents themselves.

No, the issue is mostly 5 eyes and uncompetitive US based companies. And of course, the fear that China does the same as the US does.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Not accurate

Because they didn't have to do any R&D to get their routers and switches working, so they saved themselves a lot of money and invested that in 5G development. This is basically stealing and investing the profits in a legitimate business.

[Tom 7]

Re: Not accurate

When China gets its own Eastern District of Texas Court to award Chinese companies patents on different coloured software with rounded corners then we know they have truly joined the US in destroying any chance of a free market.

[Anonymous Coward]

R&D

While not entirely coasting, Ericsson is definitely lagging in R&D with 1,607 US Patents granted in 2019 versus Huawei's 2,418.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: R&D

Does that exclude "design" patents? It seems like an awful lot new and innovative "inventions" for a single year. Maybe a lot of them are minor, inconsequential and possibly even invalid since these are, I assume, patents registered with the underfunded USPTO who don't seem to actually check patent applications any more.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: R&D

The number of patents for 5G isn't a great measure - the accusation is that Huawei filled multiple patents for similar methods to inflate their numbers.

Broadly speaking, the majority of 5G patents are advances on 4G/3G/2G etc technologies so the expectation is that either you acquire existing patents or license to build up your patent portflio and make modifications where you can.

Huawei didn't take the acquisition option and there are questions over whether it has paid its fair share of licensing under previous generations - those licences add a lot to the price tag and not paying them makes your customers happy.

[Lars]

It doesn't matter if Trump concedes or not.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Lars - Trumpism has won

Sad but so true.

[Grease Monkey]

It's been said before. But there never was any evidence that Huawei kit was used for spying and if it was calling home it would be relatively easy to prevent that from happening. Certainly easier than preventing domestic kit such as smartphones or apps such as tiktok from calling home. As such it was pretty obviously a red herring.

As such the real reason behind the whole Huawei debacle was really to try to stop China from stealing even more business from US companies. However what Trump and his monkeys failed to spot was that there are big players in the networking and particularly 5G networking business who are based neither in China nor the USA. I'm sure that Trump really wanted to say that only US kit should be in use (most of which is probably manufactured in China) but if he wanted US allies to jump on the Huawei bashing bandwagon then that was never going to wash. As such Trump and his incompetent buddies decided to make it about national security.

[Anonymous Coward]

.... and now we've left the EU, and "have our sovereignty back", the UK had to follow suit because Trump said so.

[Anonymous Coward]

@a/c

It was forever thus. Common Market or not.

Cheer… Ishy

[Anonymous Coward]

I've repeatedly made the arguments that:

a) not using Huawei kit has never about the short term security issues. The longer term security issue is what if there are only Chinese vendors?

b) as Ericsson's warning indicates, this is an economic war between European manufacturers (and their US allies) and Chinese manufacturers. China is clearly winning which is why the US tried to change the rules because the US has already allowed their players in this game to be purchased by European companies.

c) this isn't about using Cisco (or another western company) spy on your mobile usage. Huawei supports the same mandated law enforcment interception methods

Your comments around Trump assume he was thinking strategically rather than just as a narcissist who wants attention. His advisors said taking action against China would look good to his supporters and he did it, inspite of the knock-on effects to (for example) farmers and the larger rural community who were big Trump supports...

And as for the US companies pushing Huawei bans, the usual suspects (i.e. Cisco) have suffered significantly while still not having significant 5G infrastructure solutions while Qualcomm waits for 5G infrastructure from Huawei/Ericsson/Nokia to sell its mobile phone chipsets.

[Doctor Syntax]

It sounds as if Ericsson don't believe Trump's security argument about Huawei

[Wincerind]

You can bet your left sock that Ericsson have had Huawei's kit in their labs and can prove it isn't a security threat. But they can't let that one out of the bag as it would be bad for business. And also because "the Donald" won't believe it anyway and they'll be blacklisted as co conspiritors.

[Pascal Monett]

"any loosening of sanctions [..] could stymie its own growth"

Um, the contracts are already signed, no ? So you have the deal, no one can back out on that just because sanctions are loosened against a competitor.

Now, in the longer term, it would obviously mean that, for the next round of contracts, maybe Huawei equipment would be on the table again and thus, you'd have more competition, but right now it won't make a difference.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "any loosening of sanctions [..] could stymie its own growth"

Not all the contracts are signed yet, some are well down the line, some are due soon so things could change quite drastically in a relatively short time, certainly within a financial year. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, the anti-Huawei thing seems to be bi-partisan. On a similar note, other countries who followed Trumps lead or were brow beaten by Trump into dumping Huawei are unlikely to switch back once Trump is gone because that only demonstrate that they were kowtowing to his bullying rather than accepting the alleged evidence given behind closed doors.

[Bryan Hall]

Probably, but jumping the gun

Biden is the President Elect?

Your ignorance / media influence is showing. That doesn't happen until the states certify the results, and none have yet.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Probably, but jumping the gun

Oh, it's pedantry you want, eh?

The President-Elect is not determined when "the states certify the results". It happens when:

- The Electoral College returns a vote where one slate of candidates (one each for President and Vice President) gets an absolute majority, and the votes are counted by Congress in a special session, and one or the other chambers of Congress fails to challenge the votes received from any of the individual States; or

- The EC fails to return a vote where one slate gets an absolute majority, contingent elections are held in Congress, with the House of Representatives choosing the President and the Senate choosing the Vice President (this has happened three times in US history); or

- The EC returns a suitable vote, but the votes from one or more of the States are challenged by at least one member of each house of Congress. This temporarily interrupts the vote-counting session for deliberations. Congress can reject the votes from any of the States, in whole or in part. (This hasn't happened since 1872, though there were objections raised in 2001, and in 2004 the session was actually suspended briefly for a joint objection.) Once all objections have been dealt with, the vote counting is completed by Congress.

In the first or third case, the President-Elect is formally decided when the presiding officer (usually the current Vice President, sometimes the President pro tem of the Senate) announces the official tally. In the second case, I believe it's when the votes of the two chambers are recorded.

In some, but not all, of the states, state law requires electors to vote as they have pledged, or according to the state's apportionment of electors (which amounts to the same thing). But not in all of them, and even in the states which make such laws it's not entirely clear what would happen if an elector is faithless (i.e. votes otherwise). So certification by the states does not determine the President-Elect.

All that said, most sensible people have decided that Biden is the presumptive President-Elect. Complaining that an article about potential commercial consequences for a foreign firm doesn't spell out these niceties seems rather unnecessary, if not childish.

[diodesign]

Re: Probably, but jumping the gun

As you said, "probably." And we're not jumping the gun: Biden is the projected President-Elect.

C.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Joe Biden has declared that US security guarantees apply to Japan’s administration of the disputed Senkaku Islands, in the president-elect’s first significant foreign policy move related to China." FT, Nov 11.

That's a pretty big move, which Trump never made. What Biden IS likely to do is reverse the ban on TikTok (expcept for the military).