introduction
On February 26 this year, the Mobile World Congress was held in Barcelona, at which Huawei launched the world's first 5.5G solution.
However, just a few days ago, more than a dozen countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, issued a joint statement that they were ready to skip 5G and go directly to 6G technology, which is dominated by them.
Coincidentally, seeing that China cannot compete in the field of electric vehicles, Western car companies have returned to fuel vehicles, and Apple, which has previously advocated the development of smart cars, officially announced on February 28 that it would abandon its car manufacturing plan.
Some netizens commented sharply that the track was chosen by the West, and the rules were set by the West, but they just ran halfway through and found that they couldn't win against China no matter what, so they simply declared the game invalid, saying that if they didn't play, they wouldn't play.
So, how did China step by step to the forefront of industrial science and technology, which made the West angry?
Whose cake did Huawei 5G move?
In the era of 3G and 4G, Western communication manufacturers represented by Ericsson and Alcatel occupy a monopoly position, and China only follows suit.
At that time, Huawei was still in its infancy in the field of mobile communications, and it was sued by industry giant Cisco.
Ren Zhengfei is keenly aware that we must pay attention to independent innovation, otherwise there will be unexpected risks in future business competition.
Therefore, in 2009, when 3G entered the commercial stage, Huawei had already deployed 5G R&D in advance, with an initial investment of 600 million yuan, and built a technical team of more than 1,000 people.
In addition to capital investment, Huawei also mobilizes the initiative and enthusiasm of employees through equity incentives to accelerate the pace of technological innovation.
In this process, Tong Wen, Huawei's chief expert of 5G, made a great contribution, and soon after joining the Huawei team, he pushed the Polar code invented by Turkish scientist Alican to Ren Zhengfei.
This kind of coding can make the channel transmission rate close to the ideal state, which is suitable as a theoretical basis for 5G technology.
At that time, Western counterparts were still enjoying the dividends of 4G technology, Huawei was undoubtedly the first to eat crabs, risks and opportunities coexisted, Ren Zhengfei accepted Tong Wen's suggestion with great courage and resolutely embarked on the road of independent research and development.
From 2013 to 2018, Huawei invested a total of 398.714 billion yuan in 5G projects, of which more than 100 billion yuan was spent on R&D.
Tong Wen led the team to carry out comprehensive technical research, and made breakthroughs in software, hardware, and radio frequency.
Huawei has led the completion of 5G core technologies such as polar code and uplink and downlink decoding, and has received strong support from the state in the research and development process, and is more confident to face fierce international competition.
In 2019, Huawei's 5G was officially put into commercial use, which greatly promoted the transformation of communication technology and brought it to the forefront of the world in the field of 5G, breaking the decades-old monopoly of communication technology in the West.
However, when Huawei landed in the European and American markets, the United States first tore off its hypocrisy and made a formal ruling on June 30, 2020.
It believes that Huawei and ZTE pose a threat to the "national security" of the United States, and prohibits American operators from purchasing their equipment.
In addition, the United States has also put pressure on the EU countries to stop cooperation with Huawei and ZTE.
If the ban is formally implemented, it will cause Huawei a loss of $250 billion and a significant reduction in market share.
However, due to Huawei's competitive advantage, some countries have adopted Huawei equipment in large numbers, such as the United Kingdom's dependence on China's 5G equipment has reached 50%, and Cyprus has even reached 100%.
Once the cooperation is stopped, these countries will also lose themselves, so the ultimate effect of the ban remains to be seen.
According to data released by a well-known organization, Huawei will account for 32% of the global 5G vendors' market share in 2023, still ranking first in the world.
Why is the United States trying so hard to suppress it, but Huawei is still so strong?
Because the world's largest communications market is in China, the revenue of the Chinese market accounts for about 72% of Huawei's total revenue, and this alone can fully support Huawei's survival and development in the next few years.
At this time, the United States can't sit still, since 5G can't get Huawei, then go directly to 6G, preemptively formulate technical standards, and fantasize about regaining its advantage.
First of all, at the enterprise level, AITS, a U.S. communications company, joined forces with Japan and some EU countries to launch the so-called "Next G Alliance", which initially proposed a roadmap for 6G vertical industries and 47 candidate technologies.
Immediately afterwards, the Western government personally went down and led the research and development of 6G, which is considered a dagger, but an obvious question is that without the accumulation of 5G technology, can it really succeed in launching 6G directly?
In addition, Huawei has not stopped moving forward for a moment, and the 5G-A unveiled at the Mobile World Congress is another direction of 5G iteration, commonly known as 5.5G.
In addition to improving performance, 5G-A also plays an important role, which is to verify 6G technology and accumulate experience for the implementation of 6G standards.
If nothing else, Huawei is likely to be the first to break through 6G, and how will the West respond then?
Compared with the repeated pull in the field of communications, the performance of Western countries in electric vehicles is more "decisive", and simply abandoning this technical route is a posture that I can't get by.
China's electric vehicles are coming from behind
The development of electric cars in Western countries was much earlier than we think, and in 1894, Thomas Parker of England built the first mass-produced electric car, when the gasoline car was just emerging.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, electric vehicles were very popular in the United States, and many entrepreneurs, including Edison, were vigorously promoting this new type of transportation.
With the increasing maturity of fuel vehicles, especially the advent of the Ford Model T, a "revolution in automobile manufacturing" was launched.
Gasoline vehicles quickly beat electric cars at a high price-performance ratio, and by 1935, electric cars were rarely seen on the road again.
However, in the 70s of the 20th century, the oil crisis broke out, and some automakers refocused on electric vehicles.
In 1973, General Motors presented an urban electric car, which can be seen as the beginning of modern electric vehicles.
However, electric vehicles have great shortcomings in mileage, so the research and development process stops and goes, and after entering the 21st century, the environmental awareness of countries around the world has increased, and it has regained attention.
In 2000, Toyota of Japan released the first hybrid car, the Prius.
In 2006, Tesla officially entered the electric vehicle industry, and then major developed countries began to follow suit, and various new energy vehicles, including electric vehicles, emerged.
The development of new energy vehicles in mainland China began with the "10 cities and 1000 vehicles" project from 2009 to 2012.
In 2013, under the policy dividends of national and local government financial subsidies and unlimited license plates, new energy vehicles are in the ascendant.
Relying on its advantages in the battery industry, Continental finally chose electric vehicles as its main development direction.
In 2015, the wholesale sales of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 100,000 for the first time, and in 2018, it exceeded the 1 million mark, almost exponential growth.
In 2023, production and sales will continue to maintain rapid growth, with 9.587 million units and 9.495 million units, respectively, with a market share of 31.6%, ranking first in the world for 9 consecutive years.
According to statistics, in the European market, the market share of Chinese new energy vehicle brands increased from 0.5% in 2019 to 3.9% in 2021.
After a shock adjustment in 2022, it will steadily increase to 8.2% in 2023, with sales reaching 86,000 units.
China's new energy vehicles are of high quality and low price, which makes Western traditional car companies unable to parry, and they really can't make up any decent reasons to refuse, so they have chosen to stop losses conservatively.
For example, Germany's Mercedes-Benz recently announced that it would postpone the original plan to switch from oil to electricity, and the chairman of Toyota of Japan ridiculed electric vehicles and turned to develop hydrogen energy vehicles.
So, it is obviously the earliest electric vehicle developed in Western countries, why can't it compete with China now?
Because we have mastered the whole industry chain of new energy vehicles, such as the upstream lithium battery industry.
In 2023, China's total lithium battery production will exceed 940 GWh, with a total output value of more than 1.4 trillion yuan, and CATL alone will occupy 36.8% of the global market share.
And the technical path of electric vehicles is also more in line with China's national conditions, because the mainland's industrial development needs to import a large amount of oil, in the context of the current Sino-US game and regional turmoil, there are some geopolitical risks in this energy structure.
In addition, China is rich in hydropower resources and is at the forefront of the world in controlled nuclear fusion, and once the technical bottleneck is broken, it will be able to obtain nearly unlimited electricity, which will bring about a revolution in transportation methods.
These advantages are not possessed by Western countries, so they reluctantly withdraw from the field of electric vehicles, just in external publicity.
In order to save face, they deliberately exaggerate some of the technical defects of electric vehicles, which is typical of not being able to eat grapes and saying that grapes are sour.
We don't have to care about this, we just need to go down the established route and believe that the majority of consumers, as rational economic people, will make the right choice.
Taking electric buses as an example, BYD occupies 80% of the market in the United States and 70% of the market in Japan.
If the U.S. and Japanese governments want to forcibly replace the model, it will be a huge financial expenditure and will also bring a lot of trouble to the people.
I just don't know when we break one technological monopoly after another and surpass the West in all directions.
Will they be like the Qing Dynasty in the past, who regard China's technology as a flood of beasts of prey and ingenuity, and become complacent?
Epilogue:
In the past, China's technology was inferior to others, and Western countries were superior, and it was always fair and closed.
But when we catch up with them in some areas, they change their faces, and the government and companies go out together, not hesitating to break their own rules and deliberately suppress China.
This once again exposes their bandit logic, the rules are set for others, and they never follow them, but times have changed.
With the improvement of scientific and technological strength, China will increasingly become the maker of technical standards and international rules, and it is hoped that Western countries can adjust their mentality to adapt as soon as possible.