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Last week Chinese social media went viral about Huawei's launch of Mate 60 Pro phone (Aug 29). To the Chinese people, this is just another example of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But I find there is little report about it in English-language media. Actually, I only find 2 reports,

  1. "New phone sparks worry China has found a way around U.S. tech limits" from Washington Post

  2. China chip stocks rally after Huawei's low-key launch of new Mate 60 Pro phone from Reuters

Reading these two articles you definitely won't find the excitement the Chinese people have about Mate 60.

One reason I see from time to time is they don't report the news their readers know little of, or have little interest in. But Huawei seems not to fit in this category. So why there is so little report?

--- update ---

10 days after the launch, nytimes has its first report https://cn.nytimes.com/business/20230907/huawei-phone-us-china-raimondo/dual/

But I have yet to see BCC reports it. BBC covers a lot of news about China and Huawei(timely reporting), but strangely it does not report Mate 60 yet.

PS, Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan he said,

And for my — from my perspective though, what it tells us, regardless, is that the United States should continue on its course of a “small yard, high fence” set of technology restrictions focused narrowly on national security concerns ...

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    There are many close reasons that apply here: Lack of focus, as you're asking about "western media" which actually includes hundreds of publications in many different countries, who all have different interests and opinions regarding Huawei and China. Not about political processes, as you are asking about tech journalism (which may have political implications but isn't directly political). And finally promoting a specific cause, as you don't seem to be interested in why "western media" might not cover the launch and instead seem to want to argue that it's because of "sour grapes".
    – xyldke
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 15:01
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    A better question might be: Was the U.S. government surprised about the Huawei breakthrough, how much time did the U.S. government or think-tank expect China to take to produce a 7nm chip?
    – Sayaman
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 15:11
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    There is nothing political about a new phone being released.
    – Philipp ♦
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 7:22
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    The expectation that major news outlets should have articles about new smartphones, particularly within days of their release and when the device is not available in most of the target audience's market, seems questionable. For instance, the New York Times has just one article about the Galaxy S23 series, written about three weeks after its announcement, and just two or three articles about the iPhone 14 series (which has been out for almost a year). I would look to technical publications for articles about smartphones.
    – Obie 2.0
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 16:11
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    @Philipp, I agree with Qiulang, This phone which negates U.S. sanctions and introduced while the American Labor Secretary was visiting China is all about Politics.
    – user47010
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 16:32

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I believe that it has to do with the fact that Huawei was silent about how they developed their chips, so they're waiting to know the full facts of the matter before publishing an article on how China has been able to evade U.S. sanctions, but this is of course only speculations.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-09-04/look-inside-huawei-mate-60-pro-phone-powered-by-made-in-china-chip

The company’s Mate 60 Pro is powered by SMIC’s 7nm chips, according to analysis that TechInsights

Bloomberg had to confirm that it was using a 7nm process after TechInsights did a teardown of the phone. Before that, people could only speculate on how China was able to produce these chips. Some speculated they came from older inventories that came from TSMC. They had to fact check before publishing anything.

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This is still about two generations behind chips made for global leaders

(source). Enough to explain the differences between interpreting the importance of this phone by mass media in China (that is likely to be positively biased) and USA, EU (that is more likely to be negatively biased). It is a step ahead but not so that China managed to leave "collective West" in the dust on chip technology.

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  • This thing is I never heard of nikkei before. Do you? Doesn't that just confirm my question that no western media report it?
    – Qiulang
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 14:48
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    @Quilang Nikkei is one of the largest financial newspapers in the world, if not the largest. It's hardly obscure.
    – PhillS
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 15:02
  • @PhillS I checked its Japanese name so I know it just don't know its English name.
    – Qiulang
    Commented Sep 4, 2023 at 15:10

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