There are many jokes and sayings about what is happening between China and the United States. Someone believes that this is an ideological struggle, and some are waging an economic war with others only for their considerations of the ideals for which they are fighting. For example, democracy, security and the like. In fact, this is all pure business. We have already been proven more than once that the main thing in this whole situation is money. Moreover, when it comes to such a high level, the stakes become such that the parties are ready for any relatively legal action in order to get their way in this difficult matter. And again we came to the conclusion that the next US ban is aimed at making a profit from the sale of equipment for 5G.
It's not that simple if you can and want to sell chips Huawei, and Qualcomm stands in the way.
Sanctions Huawei
Recently it was reported that the US was able to persuade MediaTek to reduce the supply of chips 5G for Huawei. On the one hand, everything is logical. The Chinese company is under sanctions, and the US is trying to strangle it. It is easy to influence American companies – they just need to prohibit cooperation. It is more difficult with foreign companies and it is necessary to either negotiate or intimidate.
But this explanation turns out to be too simple. In fact, everything is a little (or much) more complicated, and money again opposes the ideological struggle and nothing more.
This time, the ban or request not to cooperate with the Chinese company seems to be related to the fact that none other than Qualcomm, an American company, is planning to supply chips 5G for Huawei.
Huawei with Qualcomm chips
Qualcomm is reportedly ready to ship chips for Huawei, but first it needs to get permission from the US authorities. Such permission can be obtained, because there is no strict ban on trade with Chinese companies, there is just a list of such companies that can pose a threat to national security due to their ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). If cooperation from the point of view of experts does not affect security, it can be allowed.
Huawei someone who can work very well with MediaTek. The latter are especially interested in this.
Qualcomm is expected to receive such approval in mid-July. Then it will be possible to start trading with a potential adversary who is not as terrible and dangerous for the United States as we were told earlier.
If everything is true, which many have almost no doubt about, then such a move makes sense, because the United States in general and Qualcomm in particular will be able to return their components to devices Huawei on their own terms. As a result, they will not only receive huge amounts of money from the company's orders, but will also be able to dictate their requirements. In fact Huawei may be on their hook.
MediaTek and Huawei
However, MediaTek so far denies this information and calls the news about the reduction in sales of chips Huawei “groundless”. The Ministry of Economy of Taiwan also disagrees with this. It states that it has not received any request from the US government and is not aware of this. In fact, this does not mean anything and it is impossible to say with certainty that this really did not happen. It is quite possible that both MediaTek and the Ministry of Economy are simply not ready to talk about this and are holding a pause for now.
MediaTek is currently one of several companies approached by Huawei to compensate for the losses of its main chip supplier, TSMC. This giant cannot accept new orders from Huawei and is just finishing up what was ordered earlier.
This batch, if any, will be uncompromising.
According to one information, this is due to the fact that TSMC produces chips using American technologies, and it is precisely such production that is now prohibited for Huawei. According to other information, TSMC can formally continue to release products, but the US government agreed with the company and provided them with a wider presence in the American market, and even allowed to build a plant there. Both versions could have forced the giant to abandon the production of chips for Huawei. This is a large and even huge client who buys more than 10 percent of the products manufactured by TSMC, but there is something for which one can refuse such cooperation.
MediaTek is also a major player in the chip market and could potentially be very useful Huawei to work on overcoming sanctions and restrictions. The companies could forge partnerships and start producing chips for a huge number of smartphones Huawei, which even now sell very well.
Itself MediaTek simply cannot but be interested in such cooperation, because only smartphones per year Huawei sell more than two hundred million units. Everyone would like to bite off such a tidbit. But, apparently, Qualcomm does not want to stand aside. Potentially, even if it compensates MediaTek the cost of every chip that it refuses to sell Huawei, the Americans will still be in the black. They can do whatever they want with Huawei.
So far, these are only rumors, but they look too realistic, especially since the American side has something to interest MediaTek, so that she refused or simply reduced cooperation with Huawei. Let's see how events will develop, but so far, more than a year after the introduction of the first sanctions, interest in the situation does not decrease, since some new details are constantly appearing in it.