Boxed in by tech and law, how can Huawei keep its Android update promise?

Late last week, Huawei sought to recover from the wave of bad publicity following its recent blacklisting by the U.S. government, with public statements of support for its products. In its “Huawei Answers” mini-site, the company mostly provides common-sense clarifications: Yes, your Huawei phone will still be able to use the Google Play Store. No, factory resetting it won’t get rid of Android or your Google apps. And the P30 series, among others, will indeed get Android Q.

The site also says Huawei will continue to keep current phones updated with security patches and software updates, even with the looming August cliff-edge for its temporary license to work with Google and certain other U.S. companies.

A crucial bit of backstory before we continue: Shortly after the initial ban in mid-May, Huawei was granted a temporary license from the government allowing it to continue to work with some U.S. firms. But this expires on August 19, and only applies to co-operation to support “existing products.” After that, if Huawei isn’t taken off the U.S. “entity list,” it would be unable to work with Google even for the purposes of updating and supporting existing devices.

As things…