Digital Media Issues: Huawei's Response to Google Ban (Report)

This report examines the digital media crisis that arose from the Huawei-Google clash, focusing on Huawei's strategic response to the ban on its Android license. The report provides an overview of the crisis, including the political and economic tensions between Huawei and the US government, and the specific issues faced by Huawei, such as the loss of access to Google apps and services. It analyzes Huawei's chosen strategy, which involved consumer-oriented microblogging and a campaign emphasizing national pride, and evaluates its effectiveness. The report also explores an alternative strategy Huawei could have taken, such as negotiating with the US government. The analysis considers the impact of the crisis on Sino-American relations and the company's reputation, concluding with a discussion of the company's image reshaping efforts. The report uses relevant sources to support its claims and provides a comprehensive analysis of the digital media challenges faced by Huawei and its response to the situation.

Running head: DIGITAL MEDIA ISSUES
DIGITAL MEDIA ISSUES
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the crisis..................................................................................................................................2
Specific Issues faced....................................................................................................................................3
Strategy taken.............................................................................................................................................4
Analysis of the strategy...........................................................................................................................4
Alternate Strategy...................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Digital media has become an important tool for all kinds of businesses worldwide. Digital
media is utilized by the businesses in order to communicate to the public about the respective
business with the help of different digitalized contents (written and audio visuals). Having a
digital space has become a necessity for every business and most of the enterprises believe in the
fact that efficient and effective utilization of digital marketing can increase the company’s sales
volume and revenue. The respective paper is a report of strategic response of an organization
which had witnessed social media network issues. The report provides with a strong and
effective strategy as a response to the digital callousness that occurred within the company as a
means to tackle it. The company taken in the respective case is Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.
Overview of the crisis
The Huawei- Google clash in the contemporary times, which arrested the mind of the
global digital media platforms, has a history behind its occurrence. Google was forced or rather
compelled to suspend the Android license of the company Huawei as the government of the
United States had put the name of Huawei as the company or the business concern which would
not be able to carry out business operations and functions anywhere in the United States. The
firms of the United States have also been banned from doing business with the Chinese
technology giant, Huawei. The respective incident provides a hint of the economic and political
tensions that have been occurring and increasing between Huawei and The United States
government. Certain claims that have been carried out against Huawei that had led to the ban of
its license by Google was that there had been news of China spying on the US and other foreign
superpowers through the usage of secret backdoors that is claimed to have been incorporated in

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the products and services provided by Huawei (Theguardian.com.2019). The consequences of
such draconian prohibition might prove disastrous and catastrophic for the company Huawei as
well as for the android department of Google. According to the declaration, individuals, people
and the associations who might have been utilizing Huawei android cell phones and smart
phones might not be, by and large, affected by the issue, however, it was to be remembered that
the people who might be using Huawei phones and tablets will not be affected on any grounds at
least for three months since the declaration as well as the termination of the license of the
company by Google, and the license was being officially closed at the time of August, or August
19, 2019 and from that time, no Huawei users would be able to connect to the google android
portals from that point of time. Users would be losing the ability to install future versions of the
Android operating system from the portals of the Huawei smart phones from now onwards. The
most catastrophic effect that happened in the breach of license was that the users would not have
access to Google Apps, software applications, Maps, Google play stores and YouTube, which
are extremely popular and customized with information which would cater to all kinds of needs
and any alteration of such applications still do not exist in the digital market
(Theguardian.com.2019).
Specific Issues faced
The most catastrophic effect that happened in the breach of license was that the users
would not have access to Google Apps, software applications, Maps, Google play stores and
YouTube, which are extremely popular and customized with information which would cater to
all kinds of needs and any alteration of such applications still do not exist in the digital market.
The ban has also affected the Sino- American bilateral trade to a huge extent. Huawei had
declared that with the ban, it might significantly harm the American market of jobs and

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companies. The upcoming Chinese technological markets might not feel secured to venture into
American soil for international business expansion. Even though the matter behind the
suspection was not completely proved with evidence, the Sino- American international relation
might have got battered due to such draconian ban inflicted on the company. Google might be
completely avoided by the Chinese netizens in order to show their solidarity and protest against
Americanization which can also affect Google in terms of international reputation, expansion,
opportunities and revenue. The Chinese as well as American international business market might
be affected economically as well as socially (Independent.co.uk.2019).
Strategy taken
The company Huawei, after the ban, had highlighted about its persuits for providing
sustainable operating system, which means that it might be developing an in- house operating
system similar to Android. However, even though American consumers have been worried about
Huawei like the rest of the world, Chinese consumers seemed to rejoice about the ban and upheld
Huawei as their national pride (Commsmea.com.2019). Huawei had been immensely supported
by the Chinese social media users and public in general and the Chinese social media has
responded in favor of Huawei. In the Chinese social media, Huawei has responded that it did not
need any American supplier for their chips and operating systems. On weibo, the #Huawei
Doesn’t Need to Rely on America for its Microchips has become famous with 19 million views.
Therefore, Huawei had taken up consumer- oriented protestant micro-blogging strategy to reach
to the customers apart from ending general communication from the US.
Analysis of the strategy
The hashtag # Huawei Doesn’t Need to Rely on America for its Microchips has been
famous all over China and has become a symbol of national pride for the Chinese individuals

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who possess anti- American sentiments within them (Hu et al. 2013). Chinese social media has
executed proper microblogging in the respective case with outrageous content and target to the
right kind of users who had also responded dynamically. The overall social media campaign of
Huawei against America has also affected the Sino- American relationship and has also played a
great part in building up tension between the two superpowers that might have got escalated to a
Sin- American bullfight or a war, which is always discouraged and not expected (Hao 2016). The
campaign, however, had brought a positive impact on the company, which is that after the
success of the hashtag slogan microblog, the company has gained unusual identification,
recognition and reputation in the Chinese market as well as to the countries that are apparently
possessing anti- American sentiment. The Chinese business society or arena had been feeling
unsually proud for the company Huawei due to social media influence and might have been
willing to support Huawei on every respect. Therefore, the founder of the company, Ren
Zhengfei declared that after the popularity of the social media campaigns of the company after
the ban, there would hardly be any effect on the company’s regional and national revenue and
5G rollout (Commsmea.com.2019).
Alternate Strategy
The strategy taken by Google to completely boycott Huawei had affected the
international relationship of Google drastically as the Chinese and anti- American netizens are
becoming skeptical to use Google and its products. On the other hand, Huawei could have taken
a peaceful decision or an agreement with the US government to prove against their allegations.
The peaceful treaty between the Chinese company and America would not have led to such a
disastrous condition of Sino- American relation. The strategy of backlash with the help of
microblogging has proved fruitful but also it has proved disastrous in case of Sino- American

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relationship. The netizens of China had been planning to boycott I-phones and the other digital
media portals and platforms that had been introduced by America or any kind of electronic
products that have been marketed in the Chinese market from America. This depicts the ati-
American sentiment of China, signifying the Sino- American cold war that is proving to be
devastating and catastrophic for the respective countries. China and America had been allies for
bilateral and multilateral trade since the contemporary times and has been known to be dealing
well with each other in the global context (Levine 2018). However, with the arrival of Donald
Trump and the draconian Sinophobic laws and regulations brought up by the xenophobic Trump
government and other issues such as China and America disputes can be termed as the reasons
behind such issues and the incident of Huawei has played the part of icing of the cake (Young
2017). American organizations and tech industries had been facing negative reactions through
social media which could have been avoided with dispute resolution. Even after the ban of
Huawie all through US, America is suggested to take negotiable actions to tackle the problem
she is facing in Chinese business environment and market through social media campaigns and
macro as well as micro-blogging to loosen the Sino-American hatred and tension.
Conclusion
After the controversy, instances are there which says that the company might have been
courting Americans through social media in order to reshape its image, which is also a
diplomatic strategy taken up by them (Npr.org.2019). However, it also has to be remembered
that in spite of making poor efforts to terminate the tension between the company and the US
government, the parties might have taken precautions beforehand to completely avoid such
conditions with peaceful strategy of discourses and agreement. The respective paper concludes to
be a report of strategic response of an organization, which is Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd,

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which had witnessed social media network issues. The report provides with a strong and
effective strategy as a response to the allegations it has faced in the hands of the government of
the United States, along with the alternate strategy that could have been taken by the company to
tackle the situation in a better way.

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References:
Commsmea.com.2019. Available at: https://www.commsmea.com/business/19514-chinese-
social-media-rallies-behind-huawei-following-trump-us-ban
Hao, Y. ed., 2016. Sino-American relations: challenges ahead. Routledge.
Hu, X., Tang, L., Tang, J. and Liu, H., 2013, February. Exploiting social relations for sentiment
analysis in microblogging. In Proceedings of the sixth ACM international conference on Web
search and data mining (pp. 537-546). ACM.
Independent.co.uk.2019. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/huawei-google-ban-what-is-android-phone-apps-a8921446.html
Levine, S.I., 2018. Sino-American Relations: Practicing Damage Control. In China and the
World (pp. 91-113). Routledge.
Npr.org.2019. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699307312/huawei-broadens-its-
campaign-to-win-over-american-public-and-media
Theguardian.com.2019. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/29/huawei-mate-30-phone-blocked-from-
using-google-apps
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother?. Business horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.

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Young, J.G., 2017. Making America 1920 again? Nativism and US immigration, past and
present. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 5(1), pp.217-235.