In the escalation of the chip war, Huawei threatens Apple again – 07/13/2023 – Nelson de Sá

Nine months after the October surprise call, when Joe Biden imposed export controls on China’s purchase of advanced chips, Xi Jinping imposed export controls on metals to produce the chips, Caixin and others highlighted last week. It was the “chip war escalation”.

“America and its allies need to heed China’s warning,” reported the Global Times. The US even threatened back, with the Wall Street Journal headline that Biden was considering “limiting China’s access to cloud computing”. But the same WSJ and the Financial Times reported that Korea and Japan were “alarmed”.

Subsequently, the New York Times and Tokyo’s Nikkei, the latter echoed by the FT, highlighted that American big techs “can’t leave China” precisely because it is the biggest market for chips or semiconductors in the world, in addition to buying their smartphones, electric cars and other electronics.

The NYT went further and advanced a report, to be released on Sunday, warning that the “blockade of China” imposed by the US since October, “an act of war”, could “backfire spectacularly”. He points to the return of Huawei, sanctioned four years ago by Donald Trump, as the battle that will define the war.

Meanwhile, writing from the Chinese giant’s headquarters in Shenzhen, Reuters heard from three anonymous “research firms” that “Huawei is poised to overcome US ban with return of 5G phones” (above). The ban on advanced chips hit Huawei when it passed Apple globally.

The dispatch was echoed by Chinese financial newspapers as Yicai and American technology sites such as Tom’s Hardware, but not by reference vehicles such as Bloomberg or Caixin, from Beijing. Reuters projects a return to production of 5G smartphones “by the end of the year”

According to the agency, citing the three sources, “Huawei should be able to acquire 5G chips domestically using its own advances in semiconductor design tools, along with Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) chip fabrication”, also in the Chinese domestic market.

In the agency’s evaluation, the return to 5G smartphones “would mark a victory” for the company, which this year would already have the P60 model, “Apple’s rival”, in 5G. According to Tom’s Hardware, Huawei must make use of a “7nm class” SMIC manufacturing process, considered until then out of its reach.

SANCTIONS TRIPPED GOLD RUSH

Reuters (below) and FT highlight an annual report by US investment firm Invesco showing that “an increasing number of countries are repatriating gold reserves as protection against the kind of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia”.

The survey heard 57 central banks and 85 sovereign wealth funds and highlights, from a BC, anonymously: “We had gold in London, but we transferred it back to our own country to keep it to keep it safe”. They repatriated gold, among others unidentified, Singapore, India and Arab countries.

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