Domino effect: Google suspends cooperation with Chinese company Huawei

(Patria) – Chinese giant Huawei has suffered another blow, as Google has suspended their access to Android operating system updates, and American chip manufacturers have stopped deliveries.

Google made this move after the US imposed sanctions against Huawei over allegations of complicity in secret eavesdropping attempts, agencies report.

Google Play will continue to be available on Huawei devices, but the next version of Huawei smartphones will not have access to these applications, as well as services like Maps and Gmail.

Chip manufacturers such as Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx, and Broadcom will suspend chip deliveries to Huawei until further notice, which had previously announced it would develop its own alternative operating system in case it lost access to American software.

Google's decision comes after Huawei learned last week that it would most likely lose the contract to supply equipment for the 5G mobile network in the UK, whose government has been under immense pressure for months, both domestically and from the US and Australia, not to allow even 'secondary equipment' from this company.

Prime Minister May had provisionally approved the use of Huawei technology in April, but five ministers in her government expressed concerns about the company's general perception.

Australia has already banned Huawei, and Robert Strayer from the US State Department warned last month that the UK's proposal to adopt Huawei technology poses a risk to intelligence cooperation between the two countries. He also stated that Huawei is 'not a trusted supplier' and that using their technology for the 5G network would pose a risk.

Huawei is resisting the increasingly widespread perception that it is complicit with the Chinese government in eavesdropping, insisting that it is a private company independent of the Chinese government, majority-owned by its employees, and that it has been supplying telecommunications technology to the UK without issues for 15 years, writes The Guardian.