US says American companies can work with Huawei on global 5G standards
After announcing a sweeping ban on transactions with Huawei in May, the United States has issued a new rule that allows US companies to cooperate with the Chinese tech giant on developing the international standards for 5G, the next generation mobile broadband.
‘The United States will not cede leadership in global innovation. This action recognizes the importance of harnessing American ingenuity to advance and protect our economic and national security,’ said US Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. ‘The Department is committed to protecting U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by encouraging U.S. industry to fully engage and advocate for U.S. technologies to become international standards.’
The move is intended to ensure that Huawei’s placement on the Entity List in May 2019 ‘does not prevent American companies from contributing to important standards-developing activities despite Huawei’s pervasive participation in standards-development organizations’, the Department of Commerce said, adding that under the new Bureau of Industry and Security (‘BIS’) rule, ‘technology that would not have required a license to be disclosed to Huawei before the company’s placement on the Entity List can be disclosed for the purpose of standards development in a standards-development body without need for an export license.’
