China Rising (Premium)

If the past year has proven anything, it’s that smartphone makers need China to thrive. What they don’t need, alas, is the United States.

And that’s a problem for companies that are not based in China. Last year, China-based Huawei surpassed Apple to become the number two smartphone maker by sales volume. And it’s only a matter of time before it passes Samsung to obtain the top spot. As bad, two other Chinese smartphone vendors—Xiaomi and Oppo—could soon join

In a way, this is a lot like last year’s race to see which technology firm would reach a $1 trillion market capitalization. The difference? All those companies—Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft—were from the United States. But in this race, it’s all about China.

Of those three Chinese smartphone makers, I’m most familiar with Huawei. I’ve reviewed several of its products, including a laptop that was, at the time, the single best Windows laptop I’d ever used. More recently, I’ve been using the Huawei Mate 20 Pro with Google Fi as my daily-use smartphone. And, sorry, folks. It is literally the single best smartphone I’ve ever used.

I’ll get to the particulars of that in a formal review soon. But this classification is particularly interesting because it comes on the heels of me purchasing and then returning several new, flagship smartphones and ultimately deciding that none of them were really any better than the phone I was already using. I had taken this as a great life lesson—there’s no need to feed the beast when the phone you’ve already paid for is still working just great—but the Mate 20 Pro throws all that for a loop.

Part of the reason for my love of this device is very particular to my own preferences, what I think of as my decision matrix: Its three-lens camera system is incredible, and it marks the first and only time I’ve evaluated a smartphone camera and found it obviously better than that in a Google Pixel. It’s so good, I’ve told my wife that I may need to actually buy this phone with my own money this year before we make any international trip. It has established a new standard for smartphone camera quality.

This is notable for a number of reasons. In previous years, when I was using an iPhone normally, I would switch to a Nexus or Pixel during trips for two reasons: Its superior camera and inexpensive data access via Google Fi (then called Project Fi). More broadly, however, one of the big stories in the smartphone industry over the past several years is how Google has been able to stick with single lens cameras and still out-perform multi-lens camera systems in iPhones, Samsung handsets, and others thanks to the firm’s advanced AI capabilities.

That advantage is gone. And in the same way that Chinese tech firms are generally thought to provide the biggest AI challenge to US tech firms, Huawei clearly has out-AI’d Google here. These capabilities are all over the phone—and can get complicated and messy in a very Samsung-like way—but I see them and use them most frequently in the camera. It adapts on the fly to any situation, recognizes food, people, and other objects instantly, and configures the optimal shot, all while you’re framing it. These capabilities aren’t just amazing, they’re stupefying.

The problem? This is not an experience that you as a US-based consumer can easily experience. Unlike in China, and unlike in Western Europe, where Huawei smartphones, at least, are widely embraced and are generally understood to be the best of the best, our government’s xenophobic anti-China policies mean that no wireless carrier or mainstream retailer will sell or support the company’s handsets. You’re being locked out of the best phones—or, at the very least, some awesome alternatives to the phones you can buy—because of suspicion-driven isolationism.

The issue, of course, is that Huawei is a gigantic, diverse company—kind of like Samsung, really—that also has ties to the Chinese government. To those in Western democracies, such a thing seems suspicious because it’s so contrary to the way that entrepreneurialism and capitalism work here. And the US isn’t alone in fearing Huawei and its governmental ties: Many countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and others have either outright banned the use of Huawei networking infrastructure or at least starting to investigate doing so.

But just as the United States isn’t going to stop China from becoming the biggest economy in the world—it is already the biggest consumer market in the world—non-Chinese tech firms are never going to stop China in technology either. And Huawei today, while not alone in this push, is certainly riding at the top of that wave.

Looking at smartphones in particular, you can see a standard playbook across multiple Chinese-based companies. Copy the best devices. Duplicate the software and services strategies of the top players. And then surpass your competition in both while offering your own devices at lower prices.

But that’s only what it looks like on the outside. Inside of China, these firms have always addressed a major need that Apple, Samsung, and others have never fulfilled by making devices, software, and services that directly address the needs of Chinese consumers. So not only is an iPhone exorbitantly expensive compared to a comparable Huawei handset in China, it’s not anywhere as well-suited for the many consumers there. That’s why these firms are racing to the top.

I’m not Chinese, of course, and I don’t live in China. And yes, this Huawei Mate 20 Pro I’m using has some weird Samsung-like flourishes, some additional apps and services that I don’t need or want, or in some cases can’t even use because I live where I live. There’s a bit of a “living on the edge” quality to the device, but as a tech enthusiast I kind of like that. What so compels me about this phone, however, is not just the amazing camera or the goofy little weirdnesses. It’s the total package, the sense that Huawei literally got everything—everything important—right. Not just right. Perfect.

So yes. I’m sure that there was some theft along the way, that Chinese firms, just like Samsung before it, edged beyond inspiration when evaluating the devices, software, and services that they needed to match and then out-match. But like Samsung, they achieved it. And now they’re reaping the rewards.

Meanwhile, when people complain that Apple has lost its innovative edge, it’s not just talk. Apple has been mailing it in for years, delivering tech later than the competition and then charging more than anyone for the privilege. They are as culpable in their defeat as is Huawei.

I can’t speak to the charges of government ties, of course. But my opinion is that the worries are mostly tied to networking infrastructure and not to phones, and that mass spying via hundreds of millions of mobile devices around the globe is something that would be noticed and publicized. And as far as trust goes, I certainly trust Huawei to make some of the most high-quality hardware I’ve ever used. I have more trust issues with Google, certainly, than I do with Huawei.

As a society, we can try all we want to blunt the impact of China and Chinese-based tech firms. But this is a temporary thing, and one that is destined for defeat. In fact, we’ve already lost. And the issue isn’t so much that China is inevitable. It’s that companies like Apple, especially, but also Samsung, have dropped the ball.