Huawei moves to reassure global partners

Huawei moves to reassure global partners

Huawei has issued a statement reassuring its partners that the US entity ban list will not impact its daily operations.

The company was responding to international media reports regarding the ban list and the impact on the Chinese multinational telco's affiliation with trade organisations and partners.

Huawei specifically highlighted an article published on BBC online, according to which UK-based chip designer ARM is reported to have informed staff to suspend business with Huawei "according to internal documents obtained by the BBC."

Huawei said: "After the US Department of Commerce announced its decision to add Huawei to its Entity List, our production and supply chains have been complying with all applicable laws and regulations, and everything remains business as usual. At the moment, our supplier ARM is reviewing and evaluating the impact of the Commerce Department's decision, and is actively communicating with the US government. We completely understand and support them."

"Recently, many of our partners have chosen to stick with us and weather this storm together. We are immensely grateful for this. Moving forward, Huawei will continue working with our partners to protect the interests of our customers and consumers around the globe, maintain order in the market, and ensure the healthy development of our industry."

The company picked up on another global article, this time on The Nikkei Asian Review, which reported that Huawei's membership is limited or suspended in associations for Wi-Fi, SD cards and chips.

According to the report the Wi-Fi Alliance (the body that establishes standards for wireless technology) has "'temporarily restricted' Huawei's participation in activities covered by Washington's blacklisting last week of the Chinese tech giant."

Huawei's statement continued: "Recently, a handful of standards and industry organisations have put some aspects of collaboration with Huawei on hold in response to political pressure. We are disappointed by these decisions, but they will not have an effect on our daily operations. We will continue to provide our customers with top-quality products and services. Huawei is an active member of over 400 standards organisations, industry alliances, and open source communities, where we serve in more than 400 key positions. We proactively contribute to these groups, and over the years we have submitted nearly 60,000 proposals. Currently, our work with the majority of standards organisations proceeds as usual. Moving forward, we will keep doing our part and work with standards and industry organisations to build a robust industry ecosystem for everyone."

The company added: "Standards represent the wisdom we have collectively distilled from all innovation in science and technology. Open and globally unified standards promote synergy along the value chain, which helps everyone provide their customers with products and services that are not only more advanced, but of much higher quality. This is what helped information society grow so strong in the first place. For the most part, all standards organisations, open source communities, and industry alliances hold true to the principles of transparency, openness, fairness, and non-discrimination. These principles lay the foundation for the healthy and sustainable development of the ICT industry."

The Chinese multinational telco denied violating the articles of association "for any of these organisations".

It stated: "...and yet a small group of them have decided to suspend collaboration without any legal basis. Their actions go against the very principles that they purport to hold, and undermine their credibility as international organisations. Ultimately, decisions like this will result in fragmented standards, including fragmentation in information and communications standards, and will only serve to drive up costs and risks for everyone along the value chain. We believe that these actions do not represent the will of the industry. Despite setbacks like this, we are confident that the ICT industry will enjoy long-term, sustainable development."

Recently the company said while it cannot officially comment on the intentions of South African networks, it does not anticipate any major impact from the US ban on the South African market.

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