After the US government said it allowed US companies to develop 5G and other standards with Chinese companies, the global telecommunications industry was delighted. The shares of Chinese technology companies have risen, and there are even rumors that sanctions against Huawei may be lifted.

Any such optimism may be short-lived. Although this week’s decision protects the global standard-setting system, it is primarily a defensive measure aimed at safeguarding US interests. It is only the US authorities who realize that groups that resist mobile standards organizations such as 3GPP will be self-harming. It may have made Huawei one of the most powerful companies in the organization, even more powerful than American companies.

US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in a statement about this decision: “The United States will not give up its leadership position in global innovation. The US Department of Commerce is committed to encouraging full participation and advocacy of American technology by encouraging American industry to become an international standard to protect US national security and foreign policy interests.”

Regarding the reasons for modifying the Huawei ban, many people believe that Huawei has a greater say in the formulation of 5G standards, and the United States is at a disadvantage in this regard. This new regulation is in response to the concerns of American companies and lawmakers.  It is also a relief for other telecommunications stakeholders who are worried about the adoption of different standards in different parts of the world. Although this is still a potential long-term result of the current technology cold war, the risk has certainly been reduced.

On the contrary, the US Department of Commerce’s move may arouse strong US interest in establishing global standards. In the 3G era, similar things happened in China. China initially decided to establish local standards dominated by local companies, but when TD-SCDMA technology failed to attract widespread international attention, the Chinese authorities changed their strategy. Subsequently, Chinese companies focused their efforts on being as dominant as possible in global institutions.

Huawei’s rotating chairman Guo Ping said in a recent press conference: “If there is further division, the entire industry will pay a painful price. The lesson here is that unified standards are essential for industry development.”

This is a somewhat embarrassing reality for American hawks. They can remove Huawei from the US network, but they cannot remove the network or technical expertise from Huawei. As an licensor of mobile technology, Huawei charges royalties for the sale of smartphones worldwide. Even if it does not have a physical base station, some of its intelligence also supports the 5G network that US operators are building.

If the United States is to become part of the global standards community as inevitably decided this week, then the only way to reduce dependence on Chinese technology is to reduce the influence of Chinese companies in the standards group. That could mean imitating China’s strategy of trying to shape international standards and fundamentally squeeze out other players. The success of this strategy is yet to be discussed. There is no doubt that Huawei’s role in the 5G standard is more prominent than in 3G or 4G.

No matter what happens to the standards, no one will seriously expect a settlement between the US and Huawei after these incidents. Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, is still under house arrest in Canada, awaiting possible extradition to the United States to face “fraud charges”. Countries including the United Kingdom are still under pressure from the United States to ban the use of Huawei’s 5G network, and trade sanctions have not been relaxed.

Actually, the reality is the opposite. Previous U.S. restrictions covered only U.S. components manufactured of U.S., which caused limited damage to Huawei and disappointed Huawei’s U.S. opponents. The US Department of Commerce recently strengthened a regulation that would prevent Huawei from purchasing any components manufactured using US technology. According to some analysts, Huawei may face a major crisis within a year due to the inability to buy equipment from important suppliers such as TSMC in Taiwan.