THREAD
As @Huawei releases Harmony OS today, this @washingtonpost story provides important insights on how embattled 🇨🇳 tech giant uses 🇷🇺 talent to diminish impact of 🇺🇸 sanctions. It also highlights some overlooked aspects of Beijing-Moscow ties. 1/ washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
As @Huawei releases Harmony OS today, this @washingtonpost story provides important insights on how embattled 🇨🇳 tech giant uses 🇷🇺 talent to diminish impact of 🇺🇸 sanctions. It also highlights some overlooked aspects of Beijing-Moscow ties. 1/ washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pac…
2/ In this well-researched piece, @evadou, @ikhurshudyan & Pei Lin Wu describe how after 🇺🇸 sanctions @Huawei has beefed up its partnership with 🇷🇺 research institution and went on hiring spree for Russian IT talents, mostly mathematicians and specialists in algorithms.
3/ Huawei has a history of significant reliance on 🇷🇺 IT talents going back many years, as company's founder Ren Zhengfei confessed back in 2019: guancha.cn/politics/2019_…
4/ With breakdown of partnership with research institutions in the U.S. and 🇺🇸 allies, @Huawei had to double down on this link with 🇷🇺. The company has tripled its research staff in the country and raised the salaries in order to attract best talent (annoying local players too).
5/ Russia can't help Huawei on hardware, chips, semiconductors etc., but can offset some losses on software development front. A significant contribution of 🇷🇺 IT specialists to development of Harmony OS is the most recent example to date.
6/ Expanded partnership with 🇷🇺 research institutions and hiring of local talent is only a fraction of @Huawei's sophisticated and multifaceted Russia strategy. I've described some other crucial elements in this @FT piece: ft.com/content/f36a55…
7/ They include cultivation of powerful local players like @sberbank (@Huawei became backbone of SberCloud and for that has dropped HuaweiCloud brand in 🇷🇺); help with buildup of SafeCity surveillance programs; and efforts to become the main foreign vendor for 5G technology.
8/ My colleagues @LeonidKovachich & @AndrKolesnikov have recently produced a must-read explainer on role of 🇨🇳 tech companies (including @Huawei) in the Kremlin's attempts to build digital authoritarianism. Here it is ICYMI. carnegie.ru/2021/04/21/dig…
9/ I agree with my colleagues' conclusion that for 5G and other critical infrastructure the Kremlin will fully trust only homemade hardware, so @Huawei will not dominate 🇷🇺 market by default. But since we know that @RostecRussia is unable to produce 5G equipment on its own...
10/... the game will be about localization of 5G technology in partnership with Rostec. I wouldn't bet my money on @nokia or @ericsson being ready to go as deep on localization as @Huawei. SberCloud is just one example, here is the most recent one: kommersant.ru/doc/4783658
11/ Bottom line is that @Huawei is becoming an important and a very representative player in relationship between Moscow&Beijing, and is emblematic in 🇨🇳🇷🇺 joint pushback against 🇺🇸. In Russia Huawei provides hardware that Moscow is unable to build on its own...
12/ ... and gets not only $$$ and a compelling story to tell other clients in developing countries, but also access to 🇷🇺 brainpower in return - brainpower it needs to withstand U.S. pressure.
13/ This symbiotical relationship also debunks the myth of Russia being a mere raw material colony to China. Indeed, bulk of 🇷🇺 exports to 🇨🇳 are commodities (and bulk of imports are tech products), but the economic relationship is more complex and multifaceted than that.
14/ @Huawei is one of the major topics of @CarnegieEndow's #PaxSinica project that documents 🇨🇳 attempts to establish Beijing-centered geoeconomic and tech order in Eurasia. More research on this coming out soon. Follow our works on PaxSinica here 👇 carnegie.ru/specialproject…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
