And the journey finally begins

Shortly after Huawei Technologies Co unveiled its in-house operating system HarmonyOS, Zhu Xiaohu, a famous angel investor in China, said on a social networking platform: "In the future, the world will need at least two sets of underlying systems. Once trust is lost, it is impossible to rebuild it. This marks the beginning of US tech companies losing their monopolistic advantage."

Comments like Zhu's are not uncommon in China. Amid the ongoing US-China frictions, tech companies including Huawei have suffered from Washington's ban on purchasing any US-originated technologies without special government approval.

This has sent a warning to Chinese internet companies that have been accustomed to relying on crucial US technologies including operating systems, processors and open-source algorithm frames for years. They never expected that one day such underlying technical platforms would be unavailable.