Game of phones
Huawei’s Mate 70 Pro is more than a flagship smartphone — it’s a direct challenge to Apple in China and a litmus test for US chip sanctions.
What could be the most important phone of the year was announced overnight — and no, it’s not a new iPhone.
Chinese tech giant Huawei unveiled the Mate 70 Pro, its latest high-end handset. It’s not just important because it could further loosen Apple’s grip on China, but also because it’s a significant milestone in the tug-of-war between Beijing and Washington, in which Huawei has played a recurring role.
Huawei, known for both telecommunications equipment and consumer tech, was thrust into the geopolitical spotlight when fears of backdoor vulnerabilities prompted the first Trump administration to ban US carriers from using the company's tech. Australia had made a similar move a year earlier. The ban also forbade American suppliers from selling their wares to Huawei.
The fallout was brutal. Huawei could no longer license new versions of Android — Google’s mobile operating system — or buy Snapdragon processors from Qualcomm. The company’s flagship phones, which cost north of $1,000, were running on an ancient, open-source version of Android, and customers had to cobble together workarounds to download apps, as Huawei wasn’t even allowed to preload the Google Play Store.
