During the 4IRA digital economy summit in Johannesburg last Friday. The South African President backed the US sanction Chinese technology giant Huawei as the best 5G mover in the digital era. The South African favoritism option checks in at a time when the US is planning to reinitiate Huawei relations back to the country with its custom OS already picking success trails.
During the President’s speech, he inked a turn to multilateral relations, which he said should also reflect an enabling posture for the global digital economy.
Ramaphosa said the US action against Huawei was an example of protectionism which would affect South Africa’s telecommunications sector.
“This standoff between China and the US where the technology company Huawei is being used as victim because of its successes is an example of protectionism that will affect our own telecommunications sector, particularly the efforts to roll out the 5G network, causing a setback on other networks as well.” He said.
The president further commented that a number of telecommunication companies had written to him to express their concerns about trade restrictions that had been imposed on Huawei by the US government.
“Telecom companies got together and wrote me a letter saying that this tussle between the US and China around the company called Huawei is going to hurt us because we can’t go to 5G and only Huawei can lead us to 5G,” he said.
With the trade discussions between the US and China set to resume, Ramaphosa said the Chinese telecom giant was a victim.
“We support a company that is going to take our country and indeed the world to better technologies, and that is 5G. We cannot afford to have our economy to be held back because of this fight. We are pleased that at the G20 Summit, China and US were able to meet and they said they will relax some of the constraints being imposed on Huawei so that it can continue to deal with other various companies.”
President Ramaphosa
A full brief of President Ramaphosa’s speech can be found https://4irsa.org/storage/2019/07/Presidential-address.pdf
All in all, South Africa’s current stand in support for Huawei for a 5G dry run for African telecommunication companies proves the fact that USA cant do away with the Chinese giant. Additionally, South Africa is a core player in the Africa telecommunications space and its endorsement for Huawei is a sign of progress on the continent.
Editor’s Note: Part of This Story is from a Press Release