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PCMag’s Huawei P30 Pro phone, which has caused a still-unfolding international incident, is back in the mail. After another false start, FedEx insists that this time, it will be delivered. We’ve created a full timeline of how this very much ongoing saga has unfolded thus far.
It all started last week, when PCMag tried to ship a Huawei phone from our UK office to our New York office for benchmark testing. This inadvertently kicked off a chain of events with global ripple effects. We got (and are still getting) confusing explanations from FedEx and the UK Royal Mail’s Parcelforce unit, there has been an outcry from the Huawei and the Chinese government, and FedEx announced it is suing the US Department of Commerce over enforcing the Trump administration’s blacklisting of Huawei.
Back when the original package was returned to our UK reporter, it came with a label blaming US government policy for the misdelivery. The offending label, which went minorly viral on Twitter, may have been added by FedEx, by Parcelforce, or by another handler in the chain. We still haven’t gotten a conclusive answer on that front.
This is totally ridiculous. Our UK writer tried to send us his @HuaweiMobile P30 unit so I could check something – not a new phone, our existing phone, already held by our company, just being sent between offices – and THIS happened @FedEx pic.twitter.com/sOaebiqfN6
— Sascha Segan (@saschasegan) June 21, 2019
Huawei is the subject of an extremely confusing ban currently affecting US companies exporting goods to Huawei offices abroad, as well as US telecom firms using Huawei hardware in their networks. The US Commerce Department seemingly delayed the ban for 90 days in May, and the White House Budget Office is reportedly seeking a longer reprieve, but the contradicting orders have sown confusion for shipping companies like FedEx.
Check out the full timeline infographic, which breaks down everything that’s happened so far.
Beyond just this incident, the ban has imperiled Huawei’s businesses because of its potential lack of access to software from Google and Microsoft, even with the delay of the export ban until August. Companies are now finding ways to work around the export ban, Mobile World Live reported today.
Huawei and FedEx also had an earlier dust-up over some misdelivered documents in late May.
Since we tried and failed to send our phone, Chinese government officials have complained, the story became a trending topic on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, and as mentioned, FedEx decided to sue the US government. US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox News: “The regulation states that common carriers cannot knowingly ship items in contravention of the entity list or other export control authorities. It does not require a common carrier to be a policeman or to know what’s in every package.”
FedEx CEO Frederick Smith then claimed on CNBC that its lawsuit had nothing to do with the Huawei mix-ups, but rather with new regulations on Chinese supercomputing organizations.
Will It Be Delivered This Time?
On Monday, Huawei’s US PR agency, Racepoint, popped a P30 Pro phone into a FedEx envelope in San Francisco. It got to us a few days later without an issue, highlighting that the problem is when devices attempt to enter the US from abroad.
So on Monday, we tried to send the phone again. Our reporter, Adam Smith, was greeted with an “oh no” at the counter as he once again entrusted the phone to Parcelforce, a unit of Royal Mail that does international parcel shipping. He sent it via “global express,” which means it should have arrived Tuesday. Parcelforce uses FedEx to ship items into the US.
For the next day and a half, we heard nothing from Parcelforce. The “global express” shipping deadline passed. Then, Wednesday morning, Smith got a call from a Parcelforce rep saying the phone was being returned to him because of customs restrictions. He then spoke to FedEx, which said FedEx would indeed take and deliver the device. Then Parcelforce came back to him saying the device had gone to FedEx.
So even though the package may arrive, there’s already been another layer of confusion, this time apparently on the part of Parcelforce.
Now, we’re waiting on a device that may arrive by 10:30 AM tomorrow. We’ll tell you if it shows up.
