Huawei goes all Art of War on us: Switches on 'battle mode' and vows to 'dominate the world'

An internal memo to Huawei staff sent by boss Ren Zhengfei is long on military metaphors and warns that the company needs to go into "battle mode" to counter trade barriers put up by the United States. Ren said that although first-half results were pretty healthy, some of this was due to sympathetic early payments by some …

[amanfromMars 1]

In Different Times ..... with SMARTR Spaces ...... for Deadly Places.

And many organisations are now just starting to understand and implement the technology in a variety of applications to supplement parallel process automation and digital transformation initiatives.

Deloitte’s State of AI in the Enterprise report suggests that by 2020 the penetration of enterprise software with AI built in, and cloud-based AI development services, will reach 87 per cent and 83 per cent, respectively,.. .... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/20/intel_ai_high_performance/

Can we contend and commend either a Parallel or Singularity with Facilities and Utilities Shared Freely and Declaring All Ready and Already Readily Available from Services signed in personally broadbandcasting Novel Countering Contra IntelAIgent Content here for You too?

Or is that just for now Too Giant a Quantum Leap to Make/Take?

Myriad Markets have an Incurable Insatiable Appetite to Know of the Progress being Made in Prime Pilgrim Seeding and Feeding Stock Supplying Almighty Virtual Assets as Heavenly Hellish Weapons ....... so that All can Enjoy the Killing to be made in Sales and Investment Opportunities Wide Open and Welcoming to Failed Federated Reserve Market Players ........ who some would say, ideally be Almighty High Rollers too ..... the Most Gracious of Gamblers par Excellence.

All of that was initially meant for reply to somewhere else but it be perfectly suited and booted for a reply to the Huawei call to arms entertaining us here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In Different Times ..... with SMARTR Spaces ...... for Deadly Places.

its certainly true that you cut could put that comment on any of the stories and it would make the same amount of sense.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: In Different Times ..... with SMARTR Spaces ...... for Deadly Places.

its certainly true that you cut could put that comment on any of the stories and it would make the same amount of sense. ..... AC

Yes, it is a Universally Useful Application for AI and IT Programming with Virtually Advanced IntelAIgent Operating Systems.

And Extremely Easily Fine Tuned for Leaderships Everywhere ...... is the Boast that Boots Sales and Boosts Deliveries ....... and Contracted for Future Supplies with Private Pirate Product Available to Seed Enchanted Executive Driver Engines is ..... well, a Heavenly Worthy Just Dessert Delivery.

Fear not what is to like. Just LOVE IT to Bits and Peaces and you will be Absolutely Awesomely Amazed at All You Can Do Next ....... via Remote Virtual Command and Quantum Communication Control of Relatively Simple Great Tasks ........ which most only never even dream of being possible, and therefore quite likely and eventually inevitably probable.

Something which seems quite ridiculously outrageous but which nevertheless easily proves itself an improving current clear and present danger and exponential existential threat to Earthly Systems Administrations ‽ . And the punctuation for those who would harbour doubt for questioning of an exclamative fact.

[Tail Up]

Re: In D....

No Doubt - Hella Good Live

https://youtu.be/Cy1vgIXaSBg

Such is so.

Moreover, IT no longer requires US-made components (-:

[amanfromMars 1]

PEBKAC Strikes Yet Again ...... Proving itself the Weakest Link and Easiest of Prey?

There are, however, limits to foresight and/or anticipation, after an extensive evaluation of “the performance of 284 expert political forecasters in the assessments of more than 80,000 predictions over a 20 year period”, the evaluation concluded: “humanity barely bests the chimp” in forecasting political issues. In other words, humans are not performing well in foreseeing events; as such technical political forecasting arose. Instead of human forecasting, algorithms are better suited to forecast situations since the algorithms prove to be equally or more accurate than human forecasting. As the aforementioned evaluation noted: “it is impossible to find any domain in which humans clearly outperformed crude extrapolation algorithms, less still sophisticated statistical ones”. At present, however, “there is very little likelihood that human punditry, particularly the opinionated self-assurance so valued in the popular media, will be completely replaced by the unblinking assessments of computer programs”. In other words, for the time being, human forecasting will drive forecasting and anticipation, as such it will be flawed. ..... On cyber: The utility of military cyber operations during armed conflict.

The persistent systemic problem and abiding exploitative vulnerability, Tail Up, which just cannot stop giving?

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: PEBKAC Strikes Yet Again ...... Proving itself the Weakest Link and Easiest of Prey?

The persistent systemic problem and abiding exploitative vulnerability, Tail Up, which just cannot stop giving?

I dont know that one , what did you get for 14 down?

[SPiT]

no longer required US components

Can we assume this is the key phrase. I always expected that to be the main trade consequence of Trump's ban. Perhaps he's suddenly realised that unless the whole world bans Huawei then he's just disadvantaging the USA.

[Jemma]

Re: no longer required US components

Trump disadvantaging the USI*?

How could that possibly happen?

The separate states are ignoring the federal government on pretty much whatever they like from green energy to womens rights (both ways, good and bad). Departments nominally within government are on the very borders of telling said government to f-off. Practically every country that didn't hate the USI with a vengeance now does. Pretty much all of this, is thanks to Darth Dumbass, and Science preserve us if he gets a second term.

How could Herr Shitgibbon possibly be a disadvantage for the USI? For one thing he's far to busy being a disadvantage to the entire human race.

I think this YouTube is very apt..

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3qYHWRIZk&list=LLYg9-2PsKj2eUt-5hvmOuWA&index=15&t=0s

*United States of Inbredistan

PS: You might be interested to know that I'm due a upgrade smartphone - it'll be a Huawei - one small solitary middle finger to Darth Dumbass..

[Stevie]

Re: no longer required US components

Well remember, OPOTUS recently gave us a brief history on the formation of the Soviet Union: They all decided to get together and then they said "We should just call it Russia".

My socialist scum teachers had me believing that there was a bloody revolution and then a series of coups and purges and vicious totalitarian military crackdowns.

I wonder why they all fell out again and split into all those Caspian Sea-side States? Tsk! Russians, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: no longer required US components

Your teacher was wrong. Actually there were two revolutions, the first one had the czar abdicate and a moderate government was formed, then Kerenski was overthrown in a coup by Bolsheviks in October 1917 who wanted to seize power suffocating into blood any different idea. Obviously, it could only led to Stalin and Beria, without any other coups, but with a lot of purges - including among the military, which became subjected to the Party and NKVD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: no longer required US components

And then a third revolution as the royalist forces fought with the communists - with the intervention of several nations (including the US), mainly to keep the port of Vladivostok open on the east coast to keep supplies going to those fighting the reds until the communists won in 1919-1920..

[Danny 2]

Re: no longer required US components

When I was 21 I had five 17 year old apprentices in an electronics factory. I got two or three good anecdotes from that, here is one.

One of them had a great grandfather in the British Army force in Russia fighting the Reds in support of the Whites, and he took photographs that my boy brought in to show us. They were of mass slaughter, mass hangings, torture and decapitations. That sort of stuff.

My first reaction was to say, "You do know he was a war criminal, right?"

"Oh no, his unit just came across these scenes and he photographed them. They'd been committed by the Bolsheviks before they fled, and they just wanted to document it."

"So, this photo when they are all sitting smiling in a group for the camera and holding up severed heads, that was for history?"

Britain committed undocumented war crimes in Russia at the start of the 20th century. Less than a hundred years ago. And not just there, Tibet, Afghanistan, China, India.

I'm amazed the rest of the world doesn't treat us the way we treat Germans and Japanese.

[One of my great grandfathers fought in an Afghan war. And in India. Economic recruit. Bred with his sister]

[YJotta]

Re: no longer required US components

Good point, well made.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Stevie's

It ain't over yet, Stevie... Briefly: Trump isn't 100 wrong, he's definitely more than half correct saying this.

[DickJR]

Re: no longer required US components

Ok, now we all know you hate every government,because they didn't renew your driver's license and put your yellow pants on your head

[Beau]

Re: no longer required US components

" it'll be a Huawei " An up vote for you Sir, and may I just add, "I had a good look at a Huawei yesterday, and ordered my P 30 pro today."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: no longer required US components

Had a Huawei - never again. Worst phone ever - unreliable, poor performance, and the support was rude when it wasn't non-existent.

Good luck with your signalling, but next time consider buying something that works for longer than 3 weeks at a time.

[veti]

Re: no longer required US components

I recommend buying a phone from any manufacturer whose name you haven't seen in the news in the last six months. When you buy Apple or Samsung or Huawei, you're paying for a premium brand.

My current phone is an Oppo, it's two years old and has given excellent service from new. And it was cheap.

[Nick Kew]

Re: no longer required US components

Here in Blighty Huawei doesn't appear to be priced as a premium brand. Real-world prices in the ballpark of Motorola/Lenovo, half the cheapest Samsung, quarter of the cheapest iphone.

[KBeee]

Re: no longer required US components

I dunno though, from the same store these look pretty much on a par with high end Samsung, Apple etc. top of the range prices.

[llaryllama]

Re: no longer required US components

ASUS ROG phone here. I admit I kinda bought it just to be awkward and because you can customize a flashing logo on the outside but it happens to be the best phone/ultra portable computer I ever owned. I got the dock with it that plugs into an HDMI monitor and has more USB ports than my wife's Macbook Pro.

[big_D]

Re: no longer required US components

My daughter is on her 3rd year with her Mate 9 Pro, it was returned with a defective camera, they replaced it without question.

My Mate 10 Pro is still going fine (and upgraded to Pie, with the July Google updates installed), my P20 is also on Pie, July updates and my wife P-Smart 2018 is also on Pie with June updates. All running fine and no slowdown so far.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: no longer required US components

hmm, anonymous generic "Huwai are shit" comments or attributable post from a known poster naming devices and periods of time..... Who to believe?!!

[low_resolution_foxxes]

Re: no longer required US components

I've had a pretty good time on Huawei devices, I'm on my second. I picked up the P20 lite phone for £180 a year ago and the only drama I've had is whether Trumpy cancels my banking security updates or blocks Android (curiously timed within weeks of Huawei overtaking Samsung by sales volume, Samsung presumably bend over backwards to give the US/UK any personal data the government wanted and help US tech apps dominate).

It's a generic sim-free smartphone + the same Face ID supplier as the iPhone. Otherwise you could put a Sony, LG or any decent brandname on it and I probably couldn't tell the difference. It has a headphone jack, no bloatware, you can delete virtually all apps - including FB (clearly not a Samsung POS then!). 8-core CPU, 4GB RAM and 64GB storage.

I don't need anything else. Oh and I picked up a Huawei M5 tablet which is decent enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Good luck with your signalling

It's impossible to criticise someone for Virtue Signalling without signalling how virtuous you are for pointing it out.

You might be right about the person you're calling out, or you might be wrong but we know for sure that, by trying to point out Virtue Signalling in someone else, you're definitely a virtue signaller.

See how it works now?

[Robert Helpmann??]

Re: Good luck with your signalling

See how it works now?

Yes! All is clear now! You are signalling your virtue by virtuously pointing out the person pointing out the person virtue signalling is signalling their virtue. Got it! And by extension, you are a virtuous virtue signalling signaler and I am pointing out the virtue signalling of the person pointing out the virtue signalling of the person pointing out the virtue signalling of the original person signalling virtue, thus making me the most superlative virtue signaler of all, QED.

[YARR]

Pointing out virtue signalling is not virtue signalling, since you don't gain from it, but you assist others from being deceived. VS-ing is an attempt to gain favour that may or may not be deserved.

[Andre Carneiro]

Re: no longer required US components

Might actually be tempted to give Huawei a go if they didn’t run a data-hoarding OS created by one of the most evil and intrusive corporations in the world...

[Gordon 10]

Re: no longer required US components

Maybe not for long if the Moron in chief holds sway. Android could be one of the biggest casualties.

[YJotta]

Re: no longer required US components

Buy the Huawei now, being part of a botnet will be a big step up for you.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: no longer required US components

How could Herr Shitgibbon possibly be a disadvantage for the USI? For one thing he's far to busy being a disadvantage to the entire human race.

Did you know he tried to buy Greenland recently?!

.. and then threww his dummy and cancelled state visit to Denmark when they refused.

About as tactful as John Belushi offering to buy fellow diners children in "The Blues Brothers"

[Trollslayer]

Re: no longer required US components

Classic!

[veti]

Re: no longer required US components

I've never believed that he actually wanted to buy Greenland. Even apart from the "buying a country" thing, Greenland of all places? - the population is less than 20% white, and it has one of the most socialist systems in Europe.

The whole thing was just a diversion.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: no longer required US components

He probably has no idea of the climate and going off the name , thinks its a good spot for a few golf courses

[Jaybus]

Re: no longer required US components

Nah! US has tried to buy Greenland before. Truman tried in 1946 for a military base, but ended up making a deal to lease instead. This time Trump wanted to trade part of Alaska + cash. It's about the rare-earths that are there. Denmark is unwilling or unable to mine the rare-earths, probably because the Chinese government-subsidized takeover of the market made it unprofitable for Denmark or not profitable enough to bother with. Like the rest of the West, they probably closed any mines they had. Trump basically wants to trade available oil reserves for available rare-earth reserves. Actually, might be a better deal for Denmark and they should probably take it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Jenny

Russian hackers meddle into elections worldwide? Didn't hear about. Must be a misspelling glitch... erections?

[sanmigueelbeer]

Re: no longer required US components

Can we assume this is the key phrase.

It means the Chinese have manage to reverse-engineer all the necessary parts needed. They've also made enough headway to manufacture said component(s) in vast quantity, cheaply.

If and when Chuck Robins reads that statement/memo he's going to go off and cry to mommy.

Globalization, looking good now for US companies, huh? Smart move guys. Really smart move.

[genghis_uk]

Re: no longer required US components

How many parts did they have to reverse engineer compared with parts that were already manufactured in China (for US companies)?

In the quest for decreased costs and increased profits, US companies have given the Chinese most of the crown jewels already.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: no longer required US components

Capitol, WH, Letter Agencies, do you mean that?

Kiddin. Hmm...

[BillG]

Tiananmen Square

No Chinese company should be using tanks as a metaphor. The memories are not flattering to their image.

[Stevie]

Bah!

"you can tie a rope around the 'tank' to pull it along"

If you are needing people to pull your tank with ropes the chances are good you have badly mishandled the old Armour/Firepower/Horsepower calculation so central to tank design.

Cutting this as fine as possible was why there were notices that no Tiger E was allowed to tow another for example. I have documentation that it took two Tigers to pull a disabled one "safely". Compare to the Panther, where the recovery vehicle was just another panther chassis repurposed.

Two pages of tank enthusiast blither redacted in accordance with laws on inhumane punishments.

Enough of this talk of tanks! It's time for a nice quiet game of Panzer Leader.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bah!

Well, that was pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Bah!

yo mommas pointless

[martinusher]

Re: Bah!

A more relevant WW2 analogy would be to look at a bit of vintage newsreel on youTube of the Chinese building an airstrip for B-29s. They ddin't have anything except manual labour and a huge stone roller. About a hundred thousand people turned up -- men, women and children -- and they built the facility in about a week.

Obviously most Chinese are like us, they would rather spend their working lives doing an "indoor job with no heavy lifting", but if push comes to shove.....

[jelabarre59]

Re: Bah!

A more relevant WW2 analogy would be to look at a bit of vintage newsreel on youTube of the Chinese building an airstrip for B-29s.

I know that one. I have it on 16MM. (for all I know the YT video originated from my copy).

[sabroni]

Re: "you can tie a rope around the 'tank' to pull it along"

I think that was a metaphor.

[Anonymous aren't cowards]

Re: "you can tie a rope around the 'tank' to pull it along"

I thought it was rhyming slang

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Stevie

World of Tanks, Stevie.worldoftanks.com

[JLV]

Macho military studliness certainly will do wonders to quell concerns that they’re in bed with the PLA and gov.

Methink unicorns, SJW-speak and random corporate “inclusive values” biz-speak might have lulled our ever-alert Western spy agencies to sleep. Then again, that might also have put their own staff to sleep.

AFAIK China ain’t renowned for its AFVs either, what with mostly running cloned T-72s. Oh dear, maybe that’s why they need those ropes.

[IGotOut]

"AFAIK China ain’t renowned for its AFVs either, what with mostly running cloned T-72s. Oh dear, maybe that’s why they need those ropes."

In ww2 the German tanks were "superior" to the Russian, except they were to good so difficult to fix, were expensive and took a long time to make. The Russian tanks were cheap, easy to fix and easy to mass produce. Numbers won.

The AK-47 is cheap, easy to make and easy to service. It's not accurate, it not highly engineered or pretty.

You can have the best tank in the world, but if the other side have a hundred ok ones,your not going to win.

[JLV]

yeah but maybe you to try something more recent. more relevant to the actual PLA hardware?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting

T-72s, all. entrenched, hull down. and regardless, running offshoots of a 48 yr old tank design ain’t nothing to brag about. These are gen 2 MBTs, they’d get chewed up by gen 3s like M1 Leopard 2 Challenger 2, there’s a massive difference in capability, most at the armor level.

just saying.

[John Jennings]

In the iraq war the T-72s wer hulls from the 1970's - generation 2. The Iraqis used rounds from the 1960s.

The optics could not see in the sandstorm. They had no FLIR and only a few laser rangefinders - mostly iron sights.

The latest T-72 went into production in 2010 and is a different tank entirely. Modern optics, FLIR, modern gun, (more of a missile launcher now!) modern reactive armour. Its a 3rd gen tank. The chinese have copied these, and the result would likely be considerably different in a rematch....

[JLV]

Gen 2 tanks were before the advent of modern Chobham-style composite ceramic armor. This was on one swing of the offense-defense cycles and it was assumed a tank could not survive a real hit by shaped charges. Therefore, gen 2 were much lighter and weren’t as heavily armored, relying on speed to survive because armor couldn't fix it.

With the Challenger 2 and the M1 the pendulum swung back to defense and gen 3 tanks gained weight again. I assume modern Russian tanks are also gen 3. Easting’s Iraqi T72 were also downgraded export models but I doubt you’d see much better PLA performance asides from their sensors. Keep in mind too: these were Iran-Iraq War veteran tankers, most likely.

FWIW, I believe the only combat loss of an M1 to date has been a massive IED in Iraq.

I mean, we can debate all we want but the PLA is still running a nearly 50 yr old design in a weapon field that that has seen major changes. Most of their conventional combat tech, right now, is iffy-ish or Russia-bought and combat experience is scarce. However, they can be extremely innovative too, for example the DF-21 which is a known unknown to US carrier groups. They wouldn’t be a pushover and they’ll push asymmetry for all it’s worth. This will only increase as time goes on and the US has been fighting essentially colonial brush wars for the last 20 years, not peers.

Hopefully we’ll all find a way to get along and fix other problems rather than start on Cold War 2. But I still find Huawei’s studly tank metaphors funny, sorry.

[drewzilla79]

Explosively Formed Penetrator

"FWIW, I believe the only combat loss of an M1 to date has been a massive IED in Iraq."

Shaped charges made from composite explosive and usually copper. They were in Iraq and likely what you are thinking of. Pretty low tech to manufacture which made them all the more terrifying.

[JLV]

It's not even a new tank, it's a refurb of the T-72. So the base armor is the same and they've added better reactive armor, sensors, engine. Just because wikipedia says it's a Gen 3 doesn't mean it's so.

http://www.military-today.com/tanks/t72b3.htm

Additionally, the newest PLA tank is the T-99 which came out in 99, so 11 years before your unrelated non-G3 puppy and it's a minority tank, not the most numerous model.

[Anonymous Coward]

In WW2 early German tanks were generally inferior to the Soviet ones considered individually, but the tactics, battle doctrine, and training (plus for a start the actual possession of working in-tank radios) meant that the German tanks swept the Soviets away despite a significant deficit in numbers. The Barbarossa armies were largely equipped with Panzer III & IV with a mixture of older designs.

German tanks weren't that much harder to fix although the Panthers (conceptually superior) - was seriously handicapped by shortages of both materials but mostly machining capacity. They suffered serious transmission problems due to the late substitution of an excellent helical gear unit by a simplified spur-gear mechanism that could not handle the weight. The original design did not make the transmission easy to service as it was not considered a high-maintenance part.

Also the Germans never developed the capacity to produce tanks at levels even close to the Soviet capacity and by 1943-44 were suffering shortages of materials like the products needed to form high quality armour steel. That is one reason (there were others of course) that the Germans consciously went for more capable tanks - hoping to offset numbers with individual capacity. Can work if the numbers aren't too disparate and does depend on your definition of "OK". One current model Abrams would fairly easily take down 100 T-34, even the late model ones provided it had enough ammunition available. Probably walk over 50 T62's as well.

In the Yom Kippur war, around 170 Israeli tanks defeated over 1200 Syrian tanks despite the fact that the Syrians had night-fighting equipment and the Israeli's did not. The Tanks were of similar rated capability - Centurions versus T-55 and T-62.

[JLV]

Apparently also, the Germans could shoot the only radio-equipped Soviet tank, that being the platoon leader’s. Once that happened, the remaining tanks would not know what to do and lose initiative.

But, yes German == super tanks is _quite_ the opposite of 41-42 reality against T34 and KV1.

Robert Forczyk Tank Warfare Eastern Front 41-42 is a good read. Volume 2, 43-45, is less interesting because it’s essentially a foregone conclusion past Kursk. He also takes a whack at SS divisions, saying their upper rank staff were just not as good and the diversion of men and top-end equipment hurt German performance compared to equipping the regular Wehrmacht.

[IsJustabloke]

Er....

Hilarious.

:-|

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Er....

I'm sorry you didn't find it amusing or to the point. I've deleted it so you won't be annoyed by its presence.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's plenty accurate for most engagements as long as it's looked after and zero'd properly. Most of the issue with "innacuracy" is due to poorly trained shooters, or weapons that have fired a gajillion rounds and were last zero'd in the Korean war.

I'm an average marksman at best, and had no issues with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously

Bluetooth SIG - Remove that and the handset division is gone.

Xilinx - Remove that and the carrier division is gone.

Canyon Bridge tried to buy Lattice Semiconductors 3 years ago to springboard China into FPGAs, they failed, between Latice, Altera and Xilinx that's well over 90% of the market. All US companies. Others would take years to develop and scale and you're not having a radio unit without one, unless you want them completely fixed in configuration making deployment costs orders of magnitude more expensive.

Huawei's talk is nonsense.

[Grikath]

Re: Seriously

"Others would take years to develop and scale..."

I'm getting the impression that this is simply not the case ( anymore), and that when the Orange Monkey™ pushes Huawei ( and thus the PRC) too hard, we'll find that the chinese are perfectly capable to flip the middle finger and whip something up in a couple of months.

So far they've just been polite...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

Grikath - Dream on.

China can't:

Build jet engines after 30 years of trying

Build advanced chip fabs - its all outsourced to Taiwan/South Korea/Japan

Design advanced indigenous chips - the type used in the Sunway supercomputer isn't exactly powerful, they just use plenty:

Summit (USA) 2,397,824 Cores, 200,794.9 Rpeak (TFlop/s)

Sierra (USA) 1,572,480 Cores, 125,712.0 Rpeak (TFlop/s)

Sunway TaihuLight 10,649,600 Cores, 125,435.9 (TFlop/s)

More notably for mobile networks - FPGA design - nothing. Mobile processor design - ARM based. Indigenous standards capable of being released in the west (802.11x, Bluetooth etc) - Nil.

Tell us how they will "whip something up" in a couple of months. Oh - and not break patents.

[Grikath]

Re: Seriously

Jet engines: 10 seconds of googling shows that they seem to have picked up on that particular trick....

Advanced chip fabs: So does the rest of the world, including the usual subjects with HQ's in the US... Besides, they don't need to re-invent the wheel, just place an order with ASML ( you might have heard of them...) or any other non-US based fabber manufacturer, and build a fancy building to house the machines while waiting for delivery...

Supercomputers: So they use the old Soviet approach: Use Plenty, Get Results. El Reg used to report on linux clusters back in the day, same difference.

Mobile: FPGA design: Gowin , and you'll find that for most electronics there's a PRC based manufacturer/developer. So, ummm.... yeah... And I could be mistaken, but aren't most, if not all mobile processors based on ARM?

And international industry standards are exactly that... international. As the IEEE found out rapidly when they needed to do a rapid 180 a while back. With that issue showing that quite a lot of chinese boffins seem to be involved in the development of those standards. So "Nil" is definitely off the table in that respect.

And as for patents... Besides the extremely ..liberal.. approach the chinese ( and most of Asia ) have always had towards IP... Yes, they can, and if the chinese are pushed hard enough, I expect they will Break the System. And maybe that'd even be a Good Thing. $Deity know that the whole set of patent systems, especially the US monstrosity needs a serious overhaul.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

Plus, small point, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea...when the chips are really down, whose side are they going to be on? The King over the water or the king in their backyard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

I see we're back to amateur hour again here. The chips would have to be very down to sacrifice their alliances to go with a country that is at odds with everyone, even its own people, and represents the biggest control freak of a regime since oh, the Nazis.

China has an avowed policy of "No Allies", just vassals and enemies.

Now you ask yourself the same question and tell me what you think.

[Grikath]

Re: Seriously

"a country that is at odds with everyone, even its own people, and represents the biggest control freak of a regime since oh, the Nazis."

Dear AC. I like the Irony in your statement...

[Julian Garrett]

Re: Seriously

Huawei is ANYTHING BUT liberal when it comes to its own IP. I have worked for them several times and the restrictions they place around their own info as fairly extreme.

[AZ457TE834NE92WR456]

Re: Seriously

Sorry, just reading this now - FPGA tech goes in cell towers not phones, and what the guys says is true - outside the USA there is nothing. China has no experience in this area. Remove that and the carrier division, at least the part that builds base stations, is kneecapped immediately.

[martinusher]

Re: Seriously

You are correct about the FPGAs but at the same time one might expect the Chinese to be aware of the potential problem and have taken some measure of precaution. This also cuts both ways -- sure, you can tell Xilinx that they can't sell chips to Hwawei any more but then that's 11 billion dollars' worth of business you've just taken from Xilinx. (I daresay Uncle Sam could just print up some extra dollars to cover it like they did for the farmers.)

Bluetooth, I'm not so sure about, its not an American technology. There are already signs that the 'rest of the world' -- that's outside the US, UK and Israel -- are getting fed up with the antics of the US government. After all, should they become too successful they could become the next Huawei.

Huawei is not talking nonsense. They are in a backs to the wall situation but its both a question of survival and of national pride for them so they have no alternative but to win, regardless of what it takes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

Bluetooth SIG is based in Washington and is ostensibly now an American technology. Yes it was started by Ericsson, yes it was developed in Europe, but it has long since moved to the US. I think it would be very hard to argue it is not a US based technology, much of the development work is handled within the US - the restrictions to Huawei being on anything that has "more than 25% US design or componentry" IIRC.

Re Xilinx - 5G is not going to go away. You now have Samsung, Altiostar, Fujitsu all starting to produce 5G carrier equipment. The Samsung equipment is even quite good. ALL manufacturers of 5G base station radio units use FPGAs and the overall demand is not going away. It would be a couple of extremely rough quarters for them but I doubt it would break them. If things start going pear shaped they could just use the Chinese trick of having a blank cheque made out to them to cover costs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

Ok, better than the usual troll farm stuff but still not going over.

Could it be that, no matter how good the bull shit sounds, it just doesn't work on these pages?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

Down voting responses is not any form of rebuttal.

The simple fact is that the US could kill Huawei stone cold dead in a matter of days if they turn off the tap to their tech, and there is nothing Huawei can do about it.

Tell me how youd continue to build handsets without access to Bluetooth. With no Google apps. With many US app developers not prepared to port their apps due to embargoes.

Tell me how you build base stations without digital signal processing capabilities where the tech and the components are of US origin.

Say you want to ignore patents. You still have a couple of years lead time before you even have rudimentary designs done. Huawei has none of these. Then let's say they do. Try selling them outside of China. No one will buy, and it will be an endless series of injunctions and legal pursuits.

You guys need to face reality here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

One of the realities you need to face is that ACs making contentious statements (with of course no posting history) who then complain about being downvoted are not exactly endearing themselves. (I gather that at last /. is experimenting with getting rid of AC posts.)

Even our resident Bombastic Bob occasionally writes good sense, which makes people more tolerant of his periodic rants.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Seriously

One thing that should never be relied upon here is the number of votes, regardless of which way they swing. I seldom comment here as there is a lot of what you expect to see - fan boys and whines. And agendas. This is no better than a click mill at times - entry is free and its a very easy way to influence opinion at no cost and no comeback. When you have organisations like foreighn governments who have particularly involved influence campaigns this is the lowest hanging fruit - why wouldn't you?

When you start seeing the same thing on the FT as well - say something pro China and you instantly get 50 recommends, say something anti and you have the army descend on you with breathless insults and a willful misrepresentation of the facts - you know something is not right. That's £27 a month times however many people they need to turn the forums there into a fuckfest. That isn't cheap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump blinked?

The "Trump blinked" linked article implies he extended the suspension of the ban. This article implies he extended the ban itself.

[martinusher]

Re: Trump blinked?

The 'blinked' bit is that the extra 10% tariff on everything that was planned for September 1st has been pushed back till Christmas, ostensibly to spare US shoppers the extra expense this Christmas season. (No, I'm not joking).

The 'extension' bit is that a large number of other Chinese companies have been added to the US's "Entity List".

The weird bit is that strictly speaking Trump doesn't have the power to impose tariffs and the like except if its a national emergency. He's pretty much said out loud that its not a national emergency so he should have been challenged by Congress or in the courts about this. I figure this is partly because there are plenty of people in Congress on both sides of the aisle that are into this new Cold War and because Democratic strategists see the potential for hubris and overreach.

From a personal perspective I see the potential for serious damage to the economy and with it my retirement savings.

[89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921]

Unintended consequences...

He's ushering in a third mass market phone OS with significant market share

[JLV]

Re: Unintended consequences...

Too early to say. One thing that comes to mind is that the “old” wisdom that the mobile OS doesn’t matter, only the app ecosystem, may look _somewhat_ different in a Chinese context. With their size, foreign content firewalling, different writing system and all sorts of home-grown apps and requirements (not least govt-mandated snooping). So there might be more of an opportunity/patience to grow that locally.

[Joe Harrison]

Game of Tanks

Sorry to interrupt but back on the subject of Huawei, why such a downer on them? Where did it come from? My guess is that they got caught backdooring their stuff, which is fine as everyone does it, but crucially failing to share the backdoors with the USA.

[JetSetJim]

Re: Game of Tanks

Why the downer? They are beating US business at the tech game - they've outmanouevered several large US companies (e.g. Motorola, who now barely exists) in achieving this. Nuff said. There are hints of backdoors being provided to Chinese authorities, but nothing particularly concrete (as opposed to those found in Cisco kit). Also, they've played a bit fast & loose with the rules around copyright & patent protection (at least in the past).

I suspect the main thing is that they are becoming a big player in network infrastructure, and they are not in a Special Relationship (TM) with the US.

[Trollslayer]

Re: Game of Tanks

Nail.

Head.

Hit.

[Gordon 10]

Re: Game of Tanks

I think its less whether a backdoor exists, and more that the western Three Letter Agencies (TLA's) have been told to go take a running jump when they hinted they would like one.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Fart of War?

[jelabarre59]

one possible benefit

There could be one possible benefit of the US cutting off Huawei's access to Android; they might have to make a fork of it that doesn't contain all that Google suckage.

[Mahhn]

Short memories

Maybe some missed the news that Huawei helped out political opponents in multiple countries, resulting in the murder of several candidates.

But ohh look there's trumpf, lets go call him names and pretend Huawei isn't putting spyware in all their phones for China's government (not like they can say no).

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Short memories

Maybe some missed the news that Huawei helped out political opponents in multiple countries, resulting in the murder of several candidates.

But ohh look there's trumpf, lets go call him names and pretend Huawei isn't putting spyware in all their phones for China's government (not like they can say no). .... Mahhn

It is proving itself extremely effective and even quite disconcerting at times, Mahhn.

Is a Program of Interest for Private Pirate Assistance ...... Divine Heavenly Intervention? :-)

And the only acceptable answer there is most definitely a resounding yes.

[Tail Up]

It was fun finding comments starting with Huawei and finishing the 1st page at Kursk tank battle.

[Trollslayer]

One of the reasons I love El Reg!

[HmYiss]

Tanks for the memories...

..and the SoCs.. ...and the modems.. and the voltage regulators.. ..and those little flappy fiddly bits that always break.. and the...

I'll get my coat.