US restrictions against Huawei could devastate the Chinese technology giant and escalate tensions between Beijing and Washington already heightened amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Commerce Department issued new guidelines on Friday barring any non-American chipmaker from supplying Huawei Technologies Co. without first getting approval from the US government.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chipmaker, has halted new orders from Huawei because of the new export restrictions.
“We will now work hard to figure out how to survive,” Huawei’s chairman, Guo Ping, said Monday. “Survival is the keyword for us now.”
The US action against Huawei, the world’s second-largest smartphone maker after Samsung, could send shockwaves reverberating through the worldwide tech industry, affecting both consumers and companies.
It could also bring retaliation against American companies like Apple and Boeing that do business in China by the ruling Communist Party that sees Huawei as a national champion.
“China likely will retaliate, and investors should brace themselves for a possible trade war escalation,” Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analysts led by Mark Li wrote in a research note, Bloomberg News reported.
The Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Commerce warned Monday that it will defend “the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises,” but did not mention possible retaliation.
The Trump administration believes Huawei assists the Chinese Communist Party in carrying out cyber-espionage operations and stealing technology.
While Washington and Beijing have called a truce in their long-running trade war, the two global powers have been feuding over the Chinese Communist Party’s response to the coronavirus pandemic that broke out in December.
President Trump accused Beijing of using its influence over the World Health Organization to mislead the global community about the extent of the coronavirus outbreak and of failing to accurately report the number of COVID-19 cases.
With Post wires