‘Made in China’ resonating more deeply at home

In October 2021, The Economist advised in an opinion article that Chinese tech giant Huawei should dissolve so its talented engineers could leave to become the next generation of high-tech entrepreneurs. At the time, the logic seemed sound.

After a series of knockout punches from America’s judicial and regulatory authorities, Huawei’s 5G telecom infrastructure and smartphone businesses were on their knees. Shut out from Western markets, its wares were met with doubts from consumers elsewhere, too.

After all, why would anyone consider buying a piece of technology that requires after-service if the firm may soon go out of business?

For individual Huawei employees, remaining with what seemed to be a sinking ship looked like a death sentence for their previously promising careers.

Fast forward to 2024, Huawei has bounced back with multiple breakthroughs designed to wean the company off foreign technologies that have become inaccessible due to US-led sanctions and other restrictions.

Consider the list. In September 2023, Huawei released the Mate 60 smartphone powered by the Kirin 9000S, a chip manufactured by China’s fellow sanctions-hit Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

In January 2024, the firm revealed HarmonyOS NEXT, a new smartphone operating system completely independent of Android.

In April, the firm started building a new R&D center to develop chipmaking tools, aiming to catch up and surpass the technological frontier now held almost exclusively by Dutch high-end chip machine maker ASML.

Huawei’s recent successes have also defied financial expectations. After hitting peak revenues of 891 billion yuan (US$123 billion) in 2020, sanctions caused them to slide 636 billion yuan ($87.5 billion)