Huawei gets a smartphone lifeline as Qualcomm given permission to supply chips

Qualcomm has told Reuters it has received licenses from the US authorities to supply Huawei with a bunch of products.

The report quotes a Qualcomm spokeswoman as saying “We received a license for a number of products, which includes some 4G products.” Reading between the lines, it would appear that licenses haven’t been granted for 5G product. That impression is given weight by the separate account of an industry analyst who claims his channel checks confirm 5G chips are not on the table.

The whole US chip ban thing was always based on much more tenuous grounds then the 5G network restrictions. The latter was ostensibly about preventing political espionage, but nobody is suggesting that Qualcomm flogging some modems to Huawei enables the Chinese state in that respect. The rationale given was more to do with industrial espionage, but on that basis then surely all Chinese companies should be banned from buying anything American.

It’s easy to believe that much of the US action against China is born of an anxiety that it’s falling behind in the telecoms arms race. That would explain why Qualcomm is permitted to sell older technologies, but not the latest ones. China has long been suspected of stealing intellectual property but, even if that’s justified, what would be the point of banning its companies from accessing older technologies?

The Biden presidency, assuming Trump’s legal efforts fall short of overturning the election result, may well take a less adversarial position on China. The FCC will be Democrat-controlled and licenses such as those granted to Qualcomm could well be more forthcoming. The precedent has been set, however, and Biden won’t want to seem to be ‘soft’ on China, so while much of Huawei’s smartphone business now has a lifeline, it may still be excluded from the 5G era.