US Could Be Stuck With Chinese Tech Suppliers

Speakers questioned whether the U.S. can completely separate from Chinese suppliers, during a webinar sponsored by Huawei Monday. “Globalization is painful but efficient,” said telecom consultant Gary Wang: “Decoupling is painful, but inefficient.” Many companies can’t stop doing business with China, he said. “There just isn’t enough manufacturing and export capacity in the rest of the world." Politicians “need to listen a lot more to the experts,” said Andrew Williamson, Huawei Technologies vice president-global government affairs. “Collectively, we really need to press a reset button and come up with global standards for cybersecurity.” China is targeting U.S. companies, Williamson said. The Chinese smartphone industry is considering adopting the Harmony operating system as an alternative to Android, and “that would be disastrous for Google,” he said. Semiconductor supply issues are likely to continue for several years, said Glenn O'Donnell, Forrester Research vice president-research director. It takes at least two years and $10 billion to build a fabrication plant, he said. “Not everything is going to come from China or not everything is going to come from the U.S.” O’Donnell said the decline in the U.S. chip industry means the nation doesn’t have the experts it needs to rebuild. “If we’re going to build up more, we need to have the talent here,” which requires government support, he said. The chip crunch is getting some FCC attention (see 2105190001).