Blacklist: Huawei boss wants to talk to President Joe Biden

The change of administration across the Atlantic will not necessarily be synonymous with easing the measures taken against Huawei and Xiaomi, Chinese companies blacklisted by Donald Trump. “I understand [these firms] being placed on the Military Entity List because they pose a risk to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests [...] I currently have no reason to believe that the entities appearing on this list should not appear on it”, notably declared Gina Raimondo, candidate for the post of Minister in charge of trade, before the senators.

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Ren Zhengfei wants to reopen dialogue

For Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei, these statements are a bad omen and he took advantage of his first media outing in more than a year in China to call for the reopening of a constructive dialogue with the US authorities. He would like Joe Biden to be like him in favor of the implementation of a more open policy, and has expressed his desire to exchange directly with the new tenant of the White House.

“I would be happy to talk on the phone with him about a common development strategy and sharing our future successes [...] The United States wants to record strong economic growth and China also wants to continue to grow economically. If Huawei's production capacity can be increased, it would mean more opportunities for American companies as well [...] I believe it would be mutually beneficial. I believe that the new administration will take business interests into account when deciding on its new policy. We still hope to be able to purchase large quantities of American materials, components and equipment so that we can all continue to grow,” he said.

Biden in an awkward position

Ren Zhengfei therefore appeals to the rationality of the United States and to a position that would only take into account the economic aspect. Remember that no American telecom equipment manufacturer is among the biggest global players, which are Chinese (Huawei, ZTE, etc.) and European (Ericsson, Nokia, etc.). Yes, but now, the decision taken by Donald Trump to place Huawei on the entity-list has never been officially justified for economic reasons. It is the firm's potential cooperation with Chinese intelligence services that would have triggered these blockages, the United States fearing being listened to by the Chinese authorities via backdoors present in Huawei equipment and software.

In this context, it is difficult to predict whether relaxations can be put in place at the request of Biden's teams and whether, for example, Huawei will again be able to contract a license with Google to operate the services of the American giant on its smartphones. Android. A point which, we have seen in our tests, is very handicapping for the smartphones of the Chinese manufacturer.