The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on Monday that it will extend a temporary license loosening restrictions on business deals with Huawei for another 90 days, yet it has also decided to add another 46 Huawei affiliates to the Entity List. As Huawei said in response to the addition, the move is politically motivated and has nothing to do with national security. The commerce department first put Huawei and its 68 affiliates on the Entity List in May, which would restrict the sale or transfer of U.S. technologies to Huawei, evoking a so-called possible security threat posed by the use of Huaweis technologies and hardware. However, given the fact that Washington has so far failed to offer any credible evidence to prove its accusations, its blacklisting of Huawei is a reflection of Washingtons logic of bullying. Washingtons Huawei ban has drawn domestic and foreign objections. Some of U.S. domestic telecom carriers, especially those in rural areas, where the optical cable infrastructure is weak, consider the cost-effective Huawei equipment a better option. According to estimates by the Rural Wireless Association, which represents 55 member companies, the total cost for small U.S. wireless carriers to replace the equipment of Huawei and other Chinese providers would amount to 800 million to 1 billion U.S. dollars. Such large-scale supply chain adjustment might compel some small companies to file for bankruptcy. As Huawei is deeply embedded in the global supply chain, the Chinese company has been widely regarded as a time-proven, reliable and safe business partner. Therefore, it is not easy for Washington to persuade even its allies to ban Huawei over some groundless charges. The illusion that shutting Huawei out from the United States will give the country an upper hand in the global 5G competition is also flawed. Washingtons abuse of the state apparatus to arbitrarily crackdown on a company will give rise to doubts about U.S. credibility and may diminish the countrys technological edge. The unfair restrictions on Huawei have forced the Chinese company to independently explore a painstaking path to research and innovation, whose outcomes may provide more options for the industry and customers worldwide. Huawei has already launched the HarmonyOS, an alternative operating system to Googles Android, which Huawei may potentially be banned from using. If the U.S. government does not allow Google to provide the Android operating system, Ren Zhengfei, Huaweis founder and the chief executive officer told Sky News, then the world may have a third operating system -- and that is not in the best benefit or interests of the United States. In todays world of growing interdependence, the birth of technological breakthroughs increasingly requires mutually beneficial cooperation that transcends national borders. A zero-sum mindset that seeks momentary dominance at the expense of others would only suffocate the spirit of openness, the very source of innovation. Xinhua
