Huawei lifeline shows Trump means business

Bloomberg

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has drawn the ire of security hawks in Congress for suggesting he could bargain away his blacklisting of Huawei Technologies Co to secure a trade deal with China.
He took a big step towards doing just that, signalling that he cares more about selling US products to China than embarking on a clash of civilisations advocated by some top advisers. In the long run, those business instincts may say more about where US-China ties are headed than his deal with President Xi Jinping to suspend any new tariffs and resume trade talks.
Trump’s move to cut off supplies to Huawei, one of China’s most celebrated companies, marked a major escalation in his confrontation with Beijing after he raised tariffs following a collapse in trade talks.
Putting the company on a Commerce Department “entity list’’ normally reserved for rogue regimes and affiliated businesses was seen as the latest sign the US and China were tumbling into a new technological cold war.
That clash between the world’s biggest economies still may happen, and is viewed as inevitable by many in Beijing and Washington. But Trump sounded much more optimistic about the future, even appearing to rebut the notion in his administration — repeated two days ago by acting Defense Secretary Mark T Esper — that China is a long-term strategic competitor.
“I think we’re going to be strategic partners,” Trump said when asked by a Chinese journalist how he viewed China.
“I think we can help each other,” he added. “If the right deal is structured we can be great for each other.’’
Trump announced that he was holding fire on his threat to add new duties to a further $300 billion in imports from China, which has led to a public revolt by US businesses making everything from video game consoles to tennis balls. He said his concern for as helping out US companies who have lobbied against the Huawei blacklisting.
“I like our companies selling things to other people,” Trump said. His remarks in a freewheeling 73-minute press briefing in Osaka recalled his landmark summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last year in Singapore. At that time, Trump backed away from his threats of “fire and fury” that stoked worries of nuclear war and instead spoke about North Korea’s economic potential — even touting the possibility of great real estate deals.
Still, like his North Korea strategy, Trump’s remarks on China left plenty of unanswered questions.
Trump said he would decide in the coming days whether to actually remove Huawei from the Commerce blacklist, adding that he was “talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem.” He also said China had committed to resume purchases of farm and other products from the US as part of the truce to
relaunch negotiations, but offered few details.
Even when talks might resume — or how long he would allow them to continue — remained a mystery. As was the question of whether China would address American complaints it had reneged on a wide range of commitments, the reason US officials gave for cutting off talks in early May.
“This doesn’t mean that there is going to be a deal,’’ Trump told reporters of the agreement to resume discussions. “But they would like to make a deal, I can tell you that.’’
China reacted to Trump’s comments with cautious optimism, indicative of a government that got burned last year for prematurely celebrating the end of trade tensions. “We will of course welcome this if those words are put into action,” Chinese diplomat Wang Xiaolong said at a briefing at the G-20 when asked about Huawei.
Beyond the Huawei move, nothing that happened in Osaka indicated the US and China were near a resolution on a growing list of grievances, according to Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

‘Huawei CEO still wants to make Canada global research centre’
Bloomberg

Ren Zhengfei, the billionaire founder of Huawei Technologies Co whose daughter’s arrest in Vancouver triggered a diplomatic crisis between China and Canada, said the company still wants to make the country its “global centre for theoretical research,” according to an interview with the Globe and Mail.
Huawei’s plans to further invest in Canada —including buying land from Montreal to Vancouver to build research centers — are unchanged, though they’ve slowed, the chief executive officer said.
Still, Ren criticised Canada for not resisting the US extradition request for his daughter, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, and urged
the country’s justice minister to free her, according to the Globe.
He suggested that he might advocate for the release of two Canadians — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — who were jailed in China days after Meng’s arrest in December, the newspaper reported.
Asked about a Bloomberg News report that Huawei
employees have collaborated on research projects with Chinese armed forces personnel, Ren said this is not
allowed.
Only one employee cited still works there, in an entry-level position, he told Globe.