Tim Cook is in China again today. It's his third trip so far this year as the Apple CEO looks to shore up relations ahead of Trump's potential trade battle.

And it comes as Chinese tech giant Huawei is set on making their clearest play yet to split their phones from U.S. software.

Our dear Deboza is looking into that in today's tech check. Good morning, Dee.

Hey, good morning, Carl. Turns out cutting off China and blacklisting Huawei that has only fueled the drive to create their own chips and software.

Another signal comes this week with the release of Huawei's new Mate 70 smartphone,

which builds on a hardware breakthrough that it made last year with the Mate 60.

Now, that one included an advanced chip made by Huawei's semi-arm

that industry observers, they didn't even think it was capable of. With this model,

Huawei is also launching its first fully homegrown operating system known as Harmony OS,

meant to compete with the two dominant ones out there. That's, of course, Apple's iOS,

and Google's Android. Now, this would essentially be a third Chinese rail as Huawei positions itself

is self-reliant, challenging Western dominance not only in smartphones, but this, of course,

has implications for the generative AI arms race as well.

It is likely no coincidence that its release coincides with Tim Cook's latest visit.

Wallway's last product release that came just hours after Apple's iPhone 16 unveiling in September.

And then that Mate 60 with a breakthrough in the microchip, that was released during a visit from U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo last year.

Now, shortly after, she called that development incredibly disturbing.

And she said that the threat from China was different than that of the Cold War decades ago, quote, it's technology, it's AI, it's moving fast.

Now, this is, of course, a threat that the incoming Trump administration will continue to try to combat.

The question that still remains, though, is how and how do you enforce it?

The original export controls on Huawei, they were implemented in that first Trump administration.

It did have the effect of just crippling Huawei's smartphone business, but less than five years

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