politics

The US government has hundreds of companies on its so-called Entity List and a good number of them come from China. One of the highest-profile names on that list in recent years has been, of course, Huawei. But if you thought the US was done with China's biggest phone and network manufacturer, it seems to be moving to squeeze out any remaining life from Huawei. Its rumored next move, however, could provoke China to finally retaliate and throw the global economy further into chaos.

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The Biden-Harris campaign is taking its work to the gaming world, specifically to hit title Animal Crossing: New Horizons, according to a new report. The Joe Biden and Kamala Harris duo have officially launched yard signs in the game, giving players a way to show their support for the campaign within their digital worlds. The new option arrives as the pandemic forces politicians to change the way they drum up support.

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It is often said how social media has become the new way news spreads, sometimes even more quickly, but few actually consider the money involved there. From clicks to page views to ads, companies like Facebook and Google have perhaps taken the lion's share of advertising profits, even when the content surfaced on their platforms come from other sources like news outlets. A new law in Australia is being proposed to shift the balance of power to those news outlets and Facebook is pretty much threatening to remove Australian's ability to share news on the network should that come to pass.

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Huawei might be changing its story from defiance to one of defeat by this time next year if things don't start looking up for it. Whereas last year it stood proud and proclaimed it could still conquer the smartphone market despite US export bans, it is now silently and chaotically trying to get supplies it needs before time runs out in mid-September. But even then, Huawei could see its smartphone empire burn by 2021 unless things take a turn for the better.

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It seems that things are going from bad to worse for Huawei, now including its smartphone business. Not only has its temporary general license expired last week, the US government is now also issuing more restrictions that will practically cut off Huawei's ability to produce its own silicon for its smartphones.

The US Commerce Department just added 38 Huawei affiliates to the country's Entity List, extending the new rule it announced last May that prevented sales of semiconductor materials and parts to Huawei, directly or indirectly.

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They say all good things come to an end and that's especially true with reprieves. Recent events, both related to the COVID-19 pandemic and TikTok, may have shoved Huawei out of the spotlight but the beleaguered Chinese company has once again come into focus and not in a good way. Huawei's license extension in the US has expired as of Thursday night and its customers both in the telecommunications and mobile markets are at a loss on how to proceed.

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That the US government under President Trump wants to ban TikTok in the country is no surprise. That it wants TikTok to sell to a US company in order to escape that ban, a deal that includes giving the US Treasury some percentage, is not a shocker either. What was rather unexpected was that Microsoft is apparently so interested in buying up the popular short-video social network that CEO Satya Nadella personally talked with government officials about it. It turns out, Twitter is another prospective buyer and it might actually be a better fit for a TikTok owner. Presuming, of course, it could even buy it.

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It seems that Huawei is quickly running out of time to keep its mobile business from getting significantly impacted by its tussle with the US government. It has just confirmed that its upcoming high-end Mate 40 series flagship will be the last of its kind to bear its equally high-end systems-on-chip, the Kirin processors made by subsidiary HiSilicon. While there is still a great deal of uncertainty in HiSilicon's future, Huawei has apparently gained an unlikely champion in Qualcomm.

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After successfully kicking out tech giants like Huawei and ZTE, the US government has apparently set its eyes on smaller fish. That said, the user bases of short-video platform TikTok and instant messaging service WeChat are so large that one can't take for granted the immediate disruption a ban would have on both the companies owning them as well as unsuspecting users. That, however, is exactly what will happen to both TikTok and WeChat if they don't give in to the new Executive Order from US President Donald Trump and sell their US operations to an American company within 45 days.

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While Huawei's smartphones are often publicized as the most immediate casualties of its tussle with the US government, they aren't the only business affected by it. Not only is Huawei involved in the equipment and technologies used to run many of the world's networks, it also has a voice in existing and upcoming industry standards when it comes to networks, AI, and even self-driving cars. Huawei's involvement in these standardization efforts has ironically put US companies in limbo which why the US Commerce Department is easing up on that restriction a bit to allow them to at least collaborate with the Chinese company on such matters.

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The US might be singling out Huawei in its spat with China but the world's second-biggest phone maker isn't the only one that is being affected by it. In light of the US Commerce Department's new trade rules, companies that export products or provide services to Huawei are now uncertain whether they will be able to keep the Chinese manufacturer as a lucrative customer. One of the biggest of those is semiconductor maker TSMC, though the Taiwan-based foundry seems not to be that worried even if it loses Huawei.

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Although controversial right from its infancy, Facebook got into deep trouble because of its involvement in the 2016 US elections. Most of that centered the spread of misinformation, some of which came from accounts that were traced to state-controlled actors and media. It has spent the past years trying to defend and rebuild its reputation and with another US election coming, it's taking a hard stance in making sure users know who might be behind certain media companies.

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