The Feds Won't Let You Use These Cheap Chinese Cellphones

American cellphone service providers don’t carry Huawei. Blame Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Two major announcements this week will shape the future of the smartphone industry, but most Americans have only heard of one of them.

The first is Apple's September Event, which on Monday introduced the iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and Apple Intelligence, the tech giant's latest attempt to make Siri useful. Today, Huawei, the largest domestic Chinese cellphone manufacturer, will unveil the first-ever trifold smartphone: the Mate XT.

As usual, Apple's announcement was a big hit. More than 8 million people watched the company's livestream on YouTube. Across the Pacific, the Mate XT has accumulated 3 million pre-orders before the product's official launch on September 10.

Huawei smartphones are nearly nonexistent in the American market, but they are common around the rest of the world. Huawei claims 19.85 percent of the Chinese market and 3.5 percent of the global market. Apple trounces Huawei, claiming over half of the American smartphone market (52 percent) and 16 percent of the global market. Both Apple's debut of its artificial intelligence and Huawei's never-before-seen trifold design are exciting developments, so why will there be very few American orders for the Mate XT? Federal policy is largely to blame. The Trump administration purged Huawei from American telecommunications systems and pressured allies to follow suit. This technonationalism has continued under the Biden administration, as documented by Reason's Eric Boehm in a 2021 article.

Opposition to Huawei was motivated by evidence of the company installing "back doors" in its telecom equipment, as well as concerns about its founder's ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army. In retaliation, the Trump administration granted the Department of Commerce the power to "determine that particular countries…are foreign adversaries." Following this order, the department added "Huawei and its 70 affiliates to the so-called 'Entity List,'" preventing firms from doing business with the Chinese company without federal approval.

In another instance of U.S.-Chinese decoupling, the Trump administration pressured Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) from selling chips to Huawei and bullied Britain into prohibiting its service providers from using Huawei tech. The final nail in Huawei's American coffin was a law "requiring that all cell phone carriers rip out Huawei tech and replace it," per Boehm.

Not only do American cellphone service providers not use Huawei equipment, but the three largest networks aren't even compatible with most Huawei devices. Verizon lists only two Huawei phones, the HERO 4 and H1511, both from 2015—obsolete by smartphone standards—as compatible with its network. AT&T also lists two: Ascent XT2 (2010) and the Ascend XT (2016). T-Mobile, on the other hand, doesn't list a single one. Given the paucity of Huawei service, it's no surprise that demand for the company's devices is virtually nonexistent. Cellphones and cell service are nearly perfect complements—one is of little use without the other. Since Americans effectively can't get the latter, the lack of demand for the former is unsurprising.

Yet the U.S. government has failed to cripple Huawei's manufacturing capabilities. The Chinese smartphone producer was the only major manufacturer to witness triple-digit growth this year, according to market researcher Counterpoint.

All that the Trump and Biden administrations have accomplished is prohibiting Americans from weighing costs and benefits and purchasing a usable Huawei device. If you're an American who would like to try out the Mate XT, you're out of luck.

Comments

[Eeyore]

I haven't bought a cellphone from a carrier in 10 years.

[Minadin]

I don't want a Chinese cell phone, no matter how cheap it is.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Apparently, the overarching g theme from Reason is that the most libertarian thing we can do is to economically prop up the our greatest international adversary at our own expense at every possible turn.

[I am not paying for your stinkin' subscription]

I thought Reason wanted us to play a violin solo in our heads and sob over the tragedy that is Chinese competition. Well, whatever. I am going to go cry in my bowl of rice.

[Mickey Rat]

So there is evidence that that brand of phone's security is compromised by a totalitarian state which is semi-hostlie to the US, and we are supposed to be bothered that it is not available in US markets?

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Yes, because without a declaration of war, it's none of the government's damned business.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, I get where you're coming from, and if picking a cell phone with a direct connection to the CCP's intelligence services was an entirely self-regarding act, I'd agree.

But it's not, and even a reasonably free state is not obligated to allow it's citizens to subsidize and extend a totalitarian adversary's spy network.

Next you'll be telling me it's nobody's business but your own if you buy an electric car that the CCP can take remote control of and start mowing down pedestrians with.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Next you'll tell me it's the government's business to control everything I do.

You either believe in individualism and personal accountability, or you don't. If the CCP starts mowing down pedestrians, would that not be an act of war? Do you really think they are so stupid as to do anything so idiotic?

Pose a real hypothesis, or admit all you have is scare tactics. What if CCP shavers suddenly start cutting throats? What if CCP toothbrushes emit poisons after a few dozen uses wear down the protective cap on the bristles?

I can think of any number of idiotic hypotheses.

[Brett Bellmore]

There's nothing idiotic about CCP electronics having back doors built in.

Here's a Chinese phone manufacturer that does it:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/xiaomi-browsers-have-backdoors_id124332

Chinese routers sold in Walmart with back doors:

https://cybernews.com/security/walmart-exclusive-routers-others-made-in-china-contain-backdoors-to-control-devices/

This isn't any more imaginary or hypothetical than China's use of slave labor. You're demanding the right to become an unpaid part of China's spying network.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

No he is demanding the right to choice for himself who he becomes an unpaid spy for.

I wouldn’t get one but some person making min wage may justify the expense vs their data.

[Bubba Jones]

Why do people think that libertarians are antisocial and autistic?

[Brett Bellmore]

Please. I'm a libertarian, I've got Aspergers, so they'd call me 'autistic', and I'm more asocial than antisocial. But I'm not stupid.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Exactly. I know damn well Google and Apple and every Big Tech company are siphoning up just as much data as the CCP, not to mention the NSA, CIA, FBI, and every other branch of the US government. Pretending faux outrage over the CCP while ignoring the local variety is being the one-eyed in the land of the two-eyed.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Really not the same thing. You may wam to let China become dominant and rule our lives, but I won’t.

[Brett Bellmore]

It actually IS the same sort of thing, on a less intense level, (There's a real tendency in the US IT world to try to recreate the Chinese social credit system.) but the difference between a 1st degree burn and being reduced to charcoal is important.

[aajax]

GM and Volvo sell Chinese-made cars in the US. If such cars are such a threat, why is that allowed?

The notion of Chinese cars mowing down pedestrians is bizarre. If China wanted to cause havoc in the US, I'm sure they have plenty of ways already, as does Russia.

[Brett Bellmore]

Apparently, yeah.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I despise Apple's secretive Steve-Job's-way-or-the-highway model and will never buy anything from them if I can avoid it. I had to use their laptops at a job, and despised how hard they made it for me to make the computer work they way *I* wanted to work.

I despise Google's nosy all-your-data-belong-to-us attitude, but it's no worse than Apple or any other Big Tech, so I don't get much choice there, the US judicial system makes it nigh on impossible to hold them to their own terms of service, and relying on the government to indict itself and their willing co-conspirators is a waste of good dreaming.

I despise the CCP and trust their companies even less than I trust US Big Tech. I will never buy a CCP phone.

But these are all MY decisions, not the government's. They can just butt right out.

[mad.casual]

But these are all MY decisions, not the government’s.

Apple’s secretive Steve-Job’s-way-or-the-highway model was your decision?

I’ve never used Twitter either, if I pretend the Biden Administration’s choice to muck around with Twitter was just a choice that some other people made, does that make it all OK to you?

Or is it the becoming-all-too-common progressive libertarian ‘reluctant and strategic’ ‘tactic’ where you’re overtly declaring that you’re A-OK with the CCP or other authoritarian agents butting in or otherwise exploiting markets and manipulating producers and/or consumers, but if the American Government butts in, only specifically in opposition to the initial transgression and/or in response to the American people, *that’s* the bridge that’s too far for you?

[SQRLSY]

When the trade wars devolve into shooting wars, I sure hope that Casually Mad will SAVE us ALL with its blustery belligerence!

"Where trade fears to go, boots and armies soon will."

[n00bdragon]

This might sound radical but what if, hypothetically, the people were allowed to choose which items to purchase (or not purchase)? Perhaps the risk of intrusive spying might make some phones unattractive to customers who are conscious of their privacy.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

No, dipshit. I want to make that choice for myself. You may think the US government is at your beck and call. I don't. Android and Linux are more customizable than Apple and Microsoft. You want to settle for their choices, that is your choice. I do not.

[mad.casual]

You want to settle for their choices, that is your choice. I do not.

You're the one who said you used Apple for work. You're the one rather openly acknowledging that Google colludes with the justice system.

The point is that the whole "I am an island unto myself." wasn't really a thing when Thoreau did it and the idea that it is a thing now, rather than, as shadydave indicates below, something that's been accounted for variously in numerous "illusion of choice schemes" is rather naive. Especially if the goal is to prevent *both* the US *and* China (*and* Google *and* Apple) from spying on everyone you know and/or interact with.

Dipshit.

[shadydave]

"But these are all MY decisions"

You make think so, but they're not. I mean it may be a choice you made from a small subset of choices artificially limited by the government, but then the government is exerting far more control over this choice than you are. It's like a magic trick where they tell you to 'pick a card': you may think you're picking a card, but they're actually picking it for you otherwise the trick won't work.

Now they SHOULD be, but again why the hell does this problem suddenly start here of all places? Of all of the existing restrictions on our liberty, being unable to buy Chinese Skynet if I want to, is not real high on my list of gripes.

But you best believe I will actively vote against anyone who wanted to keep from going to the gym or park in 2020. Or the people who bankrupted my favorite tavern. And the LP and this magazine were gratuitously disappointing in their response to that. So I'm not about to let them lecture me about poor Huawei.

[n00bdragon]

So we can't resist or even complain about the taking of our freedoms because there are more important things to do? I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with the idea that theft, assault, and fraud must be openly permitted because we haven't stopped murders from happening.

I would further object to the allegory of the card-dealing magician. Simply accepting the fact that there is or must be a magician and therefore we should skip the "pick a card" step isn't productive. We live in a democracy republic for god's sake. On some level, in some way, you are one of the (many many) people who decide what kind of government you want to have. Instead of saying "I don't want a magician, but since I have to have one I don't care if he sucks." you should say "I don't want a magician." Full stop, the end. You don't have to have one. It doesn't have to be this way and if enough people vote against it, it won't.

[Uncle Jay]

I have a phone but rarely use it.
It's as complicated as Chinese calculus just to phone someone...and don't get me started on how ridiculously difficult it is to retrieve my voice mail messages.
It's too bad the woke morons in the telecommunication industries don't make flip phones anymore.
They were simple to use.
Maybe that's why they're outdated.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

What kind of phone do you have that is so difficult to use? I got my mother onto iPhones about 11 years ago, and even a Luddite like her can manage basic functions like that without difficulty.

[Redstick56]

My 91 year Mom uses her iPhone constantly. This sounds like an ID-10-T user issue to me.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

PEBKAC-

Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

What's a nation, what does it mean to belong to one, and what are national interests?

[shadydave]

This idea that the government is restricting our choices because it won't let Huawei bolster the Chinese Government's intelligence gathering operations is insane. The only reason it's even an issue is due to a 1,000 other decisions the government made restricting our choices. Why the hell do we start stomping our feet now? You can make an argument that this really is somewhere that a line should be drawn, but it's a utilitarian argument, not a libertarian one.

That said, while it's unacceptable that the Chinese government uses these phones to spy on people, it's also unacceptable that our own government does the same damned thing. They're both horribly wrong. It's just that, for now, our own government isn't quite as evil as the CCP. Yet.

I'd love to have a phone made by some tech radical in Anguilla hiding from all of the governments. That doesn't exist.

[TJJ2000]

^THIS [phone] best comment.

Isn’t it funny how the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations” seems to only exist when practiced domestically.

[mad.casual]

I’d love to have a phone made by some tech radical in Anguilla hiding from all of the governments. That doesn’t exist.

Slight disagreement. They potentially do exist. However, the degree to which they may have been captured by any given government entity or no-shit, kills-people for drugs/money criminal organization becomes concomitantly harder to determine.

[Brandybuck]

1) All cellphones are essentially made in China.

2) "...the three largest networks aren't even compatible with most Huawei devices". Okay, cluestick: if a phone won't adhere to standards, don't support the phone. Nothing to do with politics, everything to do with proper engineering. Huawei needs to follow the prevailing standards.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

You're an idiot. They may be assembled in China, but almost all the electronic components are made in a dozen different countries.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

That’s true. In fact, in Apple’s case, they’re moving their chip manufacturing back into the US starting this year.

[tennvol]

I'm pretty sure that preventing a foreign government from spying on our citizens falls under that whole "provide for the common defense" thing.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Yes, reserve that spying capability for the US government.

[TJJ2000]

OR....... Maybe US manufacturing can put a trifold in everyone's hand and the nation won't have to sell-out to the Chinese Communist Party because we are oh.... so helpless and 'poor'! /s

[AT]

Opposition to Huawei was motivated by evidence of the company installing "back doors" in its telecom equipment, as well as concerns about its founder's ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.

Seems an entirely valid basis for opposition.

[mad.casual]

As opposed to insane political activists like Brendan Eich or James Damore who do intolerably oppressive things like spend small amounts of their own money on popular political causes or answer private, intra-company solicitations for opinion in an honest, and good faith fashion.

[Redstick56]

Propping up China's economy because they sell things cheaper sounds very similar to "Capitalists will sell us the rope we hang them with." No evidence that Lenin actually said it, but the point is valid nonetheless.

[Medulla Oblongata]

I can't say anything about specifics, but I've learned that there are a lot of good reasons why no one should trust a Huawei device with access to any of your personal or corporate or governmental agency data.

[ravenshrike]

The purpose of the tri-fold phone is bragging rights, not because it's a useful tool. The reason Samsung doesn't already have one out is because they are impossible to make so that they don't break in some fashion within 2 months with anything approaching regular use. The hinge with the screen facing outward is stupidly fragile and susceptible to wear and creasing, especially from regular friction from clothing, with no way to make a phone case that stays on the phone given the tri-fold design.

[mad.casual]

And the foldable phones have been a fairly obvious niche gimmick for a while.

They absolutely do have advantages but they are phenomenally more complicated to make and make well. Costs that far exceed any real world benefit that would generate mass conversion/adoption a la iPhone from Blackberries and PDAs.

There may be a future out there with a market of phones that is composed of 90+% roll-up, celophane-thick, touch displays. The modern era of "fold-the-paper-map the right way and not too many times" phones are not it and China's "Our maps have more folds in them!" fake-innovation, and Reason's support of it, is, generously, rather transparent salesmanship.