Kicking Huawei While It’s Down: Why Did Google, Which Claims to “Do No Evil,” Move Against Huawei First?

Kicking Huawei While It’s Down: Why Did Google, Which Claims to “Do No Evil,” Move Against Huawei First?

Compared with ZTE’s helplessness and tragic resignation in the face of U.S. sanctions last year, Huawei’s announcement that its “backup plan” was ready to go undoubtedly gave many Chinese people a sense of encouragement and hope. In a certain sense, whether Huawei can survive this unprecedented and severe test also represents whether China’s entire high-tech industry can retain even a sliver of hope under such overwhelming pressure. And the composed and dignified remarks made by Mr. Ren Zhengfei in interviews inspired deep respect. That calm confidence, neither servile nor overbearing, rests on Huawei’s years of technological accumulation.

The ZTE incident once left many people in China feeling despair, as if even after so many years of effort, our high-tech companies were still as fragile and vulnerable as the Beiyang Fleet. It is precisely because of this that Trump dared to launch a trade war without restraint, adopting an all-or-nothing posture and putting all of his demands on the table at once. And amid this back-and-forth confrontation, Huawei was dragged out as a sacrificial target. Yet at least so far, using Huawei as an example has not produced the intended deterrent effect. Instead, it has to a large extent stirred support for Huawei among the Chinese public and even among some of its American suppliers. But that support stems more from admiration for the resilience and unyielding spirit Huawei itself has shown.

At a critical moment like this, events also become a kind of mirror that reveals people’s true nature. Various opportunists and hypocrites have shown their true faces. Not to mention certain “industry peers” who repeatedly exposed their own opportunism: first denying any suspension of supplies to Huawei, then clumsily bringing up the 5G voting controversy only to embarrass themselves. At this point, people in China probably are no longer even interested in condemning such behavior. But at the same time, Google — which has long portrayed itself as a force for justice and upheld the slogan “Don’t be evil” — rushed out to make its position known, and that was genuinely shocking. So what kind of reasons and motives made Google so eager to tear off the hypocritical mask it had worn for so many years and fire the first shot against Huawei?

I think, at root, Google may have been waiting for an opportunity like this for many years. Its move to pull the rug out from under Huawei looks more like retaliation for the frustration it felt after withdrawing from the Chinese market. For well-known reasons, Google services cannot be used in China. As a result, many domestic users do not fully grasp the significance of Google’s retaliatory move, because they have never used Google Play, Google Docs, Gmail, or Chrome, and therefore cannot fully understand how serious it is to lose access to those services on a Huawei phone. But once you leave China, you quickly realize that for Android users, this is practically the end of the world. Outside the Chinese market, the services Google provides are essentially like air and water for all phones based on Android. Google’s move was, in effect, a declaration of the total collapse of Huawei’s overseas market. Before this incident, Huawei held roughly 19% of the global market share, second only to Samsung, whose devices are jokingly described here as having “excellent explosive performance.” And without the impact of this event, Huawei had originally been expected to have a chance to surpass Samsung this year.

For users with even a basic understanding of the situation, regulatory policy is naturally viewed in mostly negative terms. For Google, which lost access to one of the world’s largest markets as a result, this meant that Chinese users could use Android phones for free while Google itself could gain almost no profit from them. It is easy to imagine how much resentment that generated. Therefore, when today’s situation emerged, Google immediately stepped forward to cancel Huawei’s Android service license. In doing so, it not only aligned itself with Trump’s policy and dealt Huawei a devastating blow on a global scale, but also took revenge for years of frustration in China. Even if that meant tearing off the “Don’t be evil” mask it had worn for so long, it was apparently a price Google was willing to pay.

Because it could not obtain the Chinese market, Google did not fear losing it. From this perspective of harming others without benefiting itself, Google’s behavior also seems understandable. By contrast, other companies with countless ties to China or to Huawei have all had to think very carefully before making any explicit statement.

It is easy to imagine that in the face of such difficult circumstances, Huawei will encounter challenges of unprecedented severity. And this challenge is itself only a microcosm of a much broader test. Whether it is the backup plan or the Hongmeng operating system, both need time to take shape. In the process, a Huawei that has lost its overseas market will certainly need even more persistence and patience, both internally and externally.

This incident has also awakened minds that have long been numbed by peace, reminding us that “there has never been any savior.” If we are to stand firmly among the nations of the world, there is no path other than self-strengthening.

May Huawei’s “Hongmeng” system live up to its name — opening up a new beginning and creating an entirely new landscape.