Huawei's Thirty-Year Battle With U.S. Sanctions

Eva Dou on the rise of Chinese technology giant Huawei. Few companies better embody the promise and peril of China’s rise than Huawei. For nearly three decades, Huawei has steadily climbed towards the peak of the global telecommunications industry—first as a supplier of telecom infrastructure, then as a maker of smartphones, and more recently as a driving force behind Chinese ambitions in 5G, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence. Huawei’s ascent has also made it a prime target of U.S. sanctions, export controls, and political pressure. Since the early 2000s, Huawei has faced repeated confrontations with American economic power—from losing access to markets in Iraq and Iran, to getting shut out of 3G and 4G buildouts in the U.S. and Europe, to becoming a central focus of the Trump-era trade war with China. On this episode, we discuss Huawei with the reporter who knows the company best. Eva Dou is a tech policy reporter at The Washington Post. Prior to joining the Post, Eva spent seven years reporting on politics and technology for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing and Taipei. Earlier this year, she published House of Huawei, a deeply reported account of the rise of China’s most successful technology company and its enigmatic founder, Ren Zhengfei. House of Huawei has been Shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year.The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Josefine Petrick.To receive an email when new episodes are released, access episode transcripts, and read the hosts reflections on each episode, sign-up for the The Sanctions Age newsletter on Substack: https://www.thesanctionsage.com/