Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom company, has won a contract to build a mobile network in the Czech Republic.
I don’t want to make too much of this — after all, it is the Czech Republic and not, say, India — but it is fascinating development considering that Eastern Europe is the veritable backyard of Nokia and Ericsson. That, plus the network the Chinese OEM will put in is WCDMA, the 3G standard that originated in Europe.
Since Huawei is a preferred supplier for Vodaphone, the world’s largest mobile operator, we can expect more of this to come.
It’s just one more instance of the Chinese beating the West at its own game.