Huawei Takes Revenge as China Catches Up on Semiconductors
Export controls haven’t stopped China from developing surprisingly advanced semiconductors for smartphones, increasing American anxieties about the country’s military capabilities amid significant uncertainty.
The Mate 60 Pro’s Kirin chip.
Photographer: James Park/Bloomberg
By the standards of the gadget business, everything about Huawei’s release of its Mate 60 Pro smartphone in late August was unusual. Instead of talking up the device in a splashy marketing event, the company quietly started selling it online. Huawei didn’t even reveal several key technical specifications, yet burned through its inventory in hours. Within China, this inspired a wave of patriotic celebration.
The debut is easier to understand if the Mate 60 Pro is seen less as a mobile device and more as a message from one global superpower to another. Huawei Technologies Co. has been at the center of US attempts to undercut Chinese tech development for years. In 2019 the Trump administration added the company to the so-called Entity List, curtailing its access to US technology and effectively destroying its huge smartphone business. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have since ratcheted up pressure on China’s tech industry, most recently with export controls that the US Department of Commerce outlined in October 2022. The Mate 60 Pro went on sale just as Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was visiting China, inspiring memes there such as an image of her giving the phone a thumbs-up with the caption, “Brand Ambassador of Huawei.”