US Could Be Stuck With Chinese Tech Suppliers

Speakers questioned whether the U.S. can completely separate itself from Chinese suppliers, during a webinar sponsored by Huawei Monday. Experts warned about the semiconductor shortage, a new FCC focus (see 2105190001).

“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. In the consumer electronics and other industries, “there just isn’t enough manufacturing and export capacity in the rest of the world to make up for the supply base in China,” he said.

Politicians “need to listen a lot more to the experts,” said Andrew Williamson, Huawei Technologies vice president-global government affairs. Huawei worked with the U.K. government for years on network security, he said. “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. “This is not something for the squeamish.” Diversify the supply chain, 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. “You need stuff to make chips. … Cover the bases.”