It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the US intelligence services are defending their SIGINT turf without due consideration for US strategic interests. The China hawks, e.g. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) , have demanded that Trump maintain America’s ban on the shipment of electronic components and software to Huawei. But this may have baleful consequences for American interests. A glaring example is the threat to deny Huawei access to updates of Google’s Android operating system, used by Huawei’s mobile handsets. In response, Huawei will introduce its own mobile operating system to compete with Android. Long under development, the decision to launch an alternative to Android was accelerated by the prospect of an export ban. China buys 400 million handsets a year, and its market is big enough to persuade developers to rewrite most of the 1.7 million native Android apps for its own operating system. At that point consumers around the world will be able to choose between Google’s system and Huawei’s with no loss of functionality. There are enough governments in the world, including in Europe, with a grudge against Google to give Huawei a critical advantage in important markets.
Spengler, 'US-China tech war and the US intelligence community', Asia Times
