Chinese telecom giant Huawei and hometown rival ZTE won China Mobile’s latest tender of 5G contracts to build 232,143 fifth-generation wireless network base stations in 28 provincial-level regions. They got the contracts for more than 85% of the base stations. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. will build 57.2% of the base stations, while ZTE Corp. secured 28.7% of the contracts. The decision comes within days of Reuters reporting that the US government was moving forward with new restrictions to cut off Huawei’s access to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chip manufacturer. Reacting to the report, on April 1, 'The Paper' reported that Xu Zhicai, Chairman of Huawei, said during a conference to launch the company’s annual report:“I think the Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered. I believe the Chinese government may also take some countermeasures. Why can’t [we] ban the use of American companies’ 5G chips, base stations and smartphones containing 5G chips, and various smart terminals in China based on the same network security reasons?” and "Even in this case, Huawei can also buy chips from Samsung, Korea MTK, and Spreadtrum of China to produce mobile phones, even if Huawei cannot produce chips for a long time".
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