As Google Advances Its Interests, It Serves As Huawei Emissary To U.S.
Huawei employees wait for a shuttle bus at the company’s campus on April 12, 2019, in Shenzhen, China. A senior Huawei official says Google is talking with the U.S. government on behalf of the Chinese telecom giant.
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Google is quietly assuming the role of Huawei emissary, according to a senior Huawei official, in effect negotiating with the Commerce Department on behalf of the Chinese telecom giant that has been blacklisted in the U.S.
The fates of Huawei and Google are intertwined. Huawei is a leader in creating next-generation wireless networks, and it’s the world’s No. 2 maker of smartphones. Google provides support for Android, the popular mobile operating system. The U.S. government ban against Huawei also blocks Google from giving security updates to millions of existing Huawei phones and from issuing Android licenses in the future.
In an interview this week with Huawei Chairman Liang Hua, NPR asked him how his company would resolve the problem of losing access to Google software.
“Google is a very responsible company. We have maintained very good cooperation with each other,” Liang said through a translator at Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China. “We really look forward to productive results from the communication that Google is currently having with the Commerce Department.”
When the Huawei ban first went into effect, and Google announced it would cut ties, there was an outcry. Days later, the Trump administration said it would postpone parts of the ban until August.
The outsize power of American tech giants is well-understood the world over. Huawei’s Liang is now leaning on Google to influence the Commerce Department on his company’s behalf.
“We really hope that there are possible remedies coming out of the communication between Google and the Commerce Department,” he said. “We think that it is in the benefit of the consumers if they could work out a solution.”
Last month, citing national security concerns, the Trump administration added Huawei to a list of banned entities. American companies — from mobile providers to chipmakers like Intel and Qualcomm — will not be allowed to do business with Huawei. That’s because, according to U.S. officials, the company’s technology could be used for surveillance. If a resolution isn’t reached, Liang says, Huawei will have to build its own software, which would be “difficult.”
Liang says he does not know the details of the talks. In an email, a Google spokesperson says the company is engaging with the Commerce Department to ensure Google is in “full compliance” with the new rules. The company declined to say if its talks with the government have included directly or indirectly advocating for the ability to support future Huawei devices.
NPR interviewed several former senior officials at Commerce and the White House who are concerned that a private company, governed by its own self-interests, is advocating for a foreign partner that has been officially blacklisted for security concerns.
Eric Hirschhorn says turning Huawei into a bargaining chip in the U.S.-China trade war was a strategic mistake. “I spent a lot of time [trying] to make sure that national security and trade were kept separate,” he said. Mixing the two “would have been unheard of.”
Hirschhorn served in the Commerce Department during the Obama administration as an undersecretary for industry and security.
According to former Commerce officials, it’s standard for companies to reach out to the department about their ability to do business abroad. But the foreign partner is often at the table too, able to talk and be questioned.
Hirschhorn says the process changes once the U.S. government decides to take enforcement action – as it did last month when the U.S. banned Huawei. He says company financials should not be considered alongside national security decisions. And, he says, if Huawei gets what it wants, through Google’s efforts, that sends a “very, very bad message” to people who break American rules.
“If I know that my government or my powerful business partner can basically fix a ticket if I get one, I won’t worry about speeding,” Hirschhorn says.
The Commerce Department says it routinely responds to inquiries from companies about regulatory requirements. It says this is not new to this administration, and these discussions don’t influence law enforcement actions.
NPR’s Pallavi Gogoi contributed to this report.
Roger Federer And Rafael Nadal Set To Reignite Their Rivalry At French Open Semifinal
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim about Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal renewing their rivalry at the French Open.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
On Friday, two of tennis’ all-time greats will reignite their rivalry at the French Open semifinal; 37-year-old Roger Federer will take on 33-year-old Rafael Nadal for the 39th in their careers – keep all those 30s straight. Nadal is the current French Open champion. He has won a record 11 titles there. Federer, meanwhile, edges him out in Grand Slam titles overall, which means, whether you are team Nadal or team Federer, Friday’s match is not one you are going to want to miss. To help us prep, we have called Jon Wertheim from Sports Illustrated. He is in Paris. Hello again, Jon.
JON WERTHEIM: Nice to talk again.
KELLY: Nice to speak to you. OK, so Friday – it’s big. How big? How excited should we be here?
WERTHEIM: We should be teeming with excitement.
KELLY: (Laughter).
WERTHEIM: This is Nadal-Federer 39. A lot of us who cover this sport weren’t sure we would get this match, much less at a major event. And you mentioned team Nadal and team Federer, but really, this is a rare rivalry where it’s completely reasonable to root for both of them. So this is sort of a triumph for tennis, as well as another installment in this great rivalry.
KELLY: Oh, really? So you’re making the argument – the fact that this match is happening at all is cause for jubilation?
WERTHEIM: Roger Federer is going to be 38 years old in a few months. Nadal just turned 33 the other day. And I think 10 years ago, if you had said, look – in 2019, these guys are still going to be meeting in the latter rounds of majors, people would have, you know, chased you around with butterfly nets. So it’s really that the longevity is part of what’s extraordinary, the fact that here they are, still at the top of their sport. And this rivalry still continues to undulate to sway. I mean, Nadal leads the head-to-heads 23 to 15, but he hasn’t beaten Federer in more than half a decade. Federer has actually won the last four or five matchups they’ve played.
KELLY: Federer’s won the last four or five matches they’ve played, but has Federer ever won against Nadal in Paris, at the French Open?
WERTHEIM: He has not, and that’s sort of – that’s Nadal’s great ace in the hole. This is his personal sandbox. Nadal has won 17 majors, and 11 of them have come here. He is – so Federer has never made inroads against Nadal at the French Open, and this is sort of seen as Nadal’s great stand here against Federer. I mean, again…
KELLY: I mean – and explain why that is. What is it about Nadal’s style of play that makes him so good on clay, which is what they play in Paris?
WERTHEIM: His game is just absolutely tailored to the surface – the fact that he’s left-handed; it’s the surface he grew up playing on. I think a lot of it is sort of spiritual. It’s almost psychological as well. Nadal is this workmanlike player, and clay really rewards effort in a way that no other surface does. It’s really perfect for Nadal’s sort of offense, defense. It also has the effect of sort of blunting some of Federer’s grace and artistry.
KELLY: Huh. It sounds as though you are maybe aligning yourself with the way the betting money is going, that you think Nadal is going to be just hard to beat here?
WERTHEIM: I think Nadal is going to be hard to beat. I mean, the great subtext of this match, too, is that Novak Djokovic, who’s the No. 1 player and has won three majors in a row, isn’t even really being spoken about. And this story has kind of overwhelmed the narrative here. You wonder if, while all the attention is on Federer and Nadal and their 39th encounter, if Novak Djokovic sneaks by and plays one of them on tired legs and takes the title; that wouldn’t surprise me at all.
KELLY: Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated. Thanks for joining us from Paris.
WERTHEIM: Anytime. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TENNIS’ “ORIGINS”)
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Social Security Error Jeopardizes Medicare Coverage For 250,000 Seniors
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A quarter of a million Medicare beneficiaries may be receiving bills for as many as five months of premiums they thought they had already paid.
But they shouldn’t toss the letter in the garbage. It’s not a scam or a mistake.
Because of what the Social Security Administration calls “a processing error” in January, it did not deduct premiums from some seniors’ Social Security checks and it didn’t pay the insurance plans, according to the agency’s “frequently asked questions” page on its website.
The problem applies to private drug policies and Medicare Advantage plans that provide both medical and drug coverage and that substitute for traditional government-run Medicare.
Some people will discover they must find the money to pay the plans. Others may find their plans canceled. Medicare officials say approximately 250,000 people are affected.
Medicare and Social Security say they expect that proper deductions and payments to insurers will resume this month or next. Insurers are required to send bills directly to their members for the unpaid premiums, according to Medicare.
But neither agency would explain how the error occurred or provide a more exact number or the names of the plans that were shortchanged. The amount the plans are owed also wasn’t disclosed. A notice to beneficiaries on Medicare’s website lacks key details.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, and two colleagues wrote to both agencies about the problem on May 22 but have not received a response from Medicare. Social Security’s response referred most questions to Medicare officials.
Organizations that help seniors say they are getting some questions from Medicare beneficiaries.
Two seniors in Louisiana lost drug coverage after their policies were canceled due to the SSA error, says Vicki Dufrene, director of the state’s Senior Health Insurance Information Program. One woman had the same drug plan since 2013, which dropped her at the end of April. She was without coverage for the entire month of May until earlier this week, when Dufrene was able to get her retroactively re-enrolled.
Dufrene says some people might not notice that their checks did not include a deduction for their Medicare Advantage or drug plan premiums. If their check was a little more than expected, they could have assumed that extra amount was the expected cost-of-living increase, among other things.
In Ohio, a Medicare Advantage plan reinstated a member due to unpaid premiums less than 48 hours after the state’s health insurance information program for seniors got involved, says director Christina Reeg.
Medicare beneficiaries have had the option of paying their premiums through a deduction from their Social Security checks for more than a decade, she says. However, they can also charge payments directly to a credit card or checking account instead of relying on Social Security.
Humana spokesman Mark Mathis says about 33,000 members were affected — or fewer than 1% of its total Medicare membership. None of those members lost coverage. The company blamed Medicare’s nearly 15-year-old IT systems for the failure and urged the agency to invest in new equipment.
A UnitedHealthcare representative says none of its 32,000 Medicare Advantage or Part D members affected by the SSA problem lost coverage. The company has the highest Medicare enrollment in the U.S.
Aetna has not received payments for Medicare Advantage and drug plans for the months of February through May for 43,000 affected members, says spokesman Ethan Slavin. Customers will receive bills for the unpaid premiums and can set up payment plans if they can’t pay the entire amount.
These and other affected insurers must allow their members at least two months from the billing date to pay. And they must offer a payment plan for those who can’t pay several months of premiums at once, Medicare says. With both steps, “plans can avoid invoking their policy of disenrollment for failure to pay premiums while the member is adhering to the payment plan,” Jennifer Shapiro, the acting director for the Medicare Plan Payment Group, warned the companies in a May 22 memo.
Lindsey Copeland, federal policy director for the Medicare Rights Center, an advocacy group, says she is concerned that older adults will view the bill with suspicion.
“If you think your premiums are being paid automatically and then your plan tells you six months later that wasn’t the case, you may be confused,” she says.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Contact Susan Jaffe at Jaffe.KHN@gmail.com or @susanjaffe
