How did a small telephone switch reseller from southern China become the most powerful technology company in the world? And why is so little known about Huawei and its enigmatic founder, Ren Zhengfei?
Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou sets out to answer these questions over a fascinating deep dive into the history and boardrooms of Huawei, from its foundation in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in September 1987 right up to the September 2023 launch of the company’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which runs on the first 5g chip made domestically within China.
As a young engineering graduate, founder Ren Zhengfei spent years helping to build a secret military production site in Guizhou, close to the Vietnam border. Dou argues that this experience had a profound influence on Ren’s worldview and how he subsequently managed his company “with a military-esque culture, running new hires through army-inspired boot camps and emphasising discipline and personal sacrifice”.
The big questions surrounding Huawei and its subsequent travails with western governments relate to its connections to the Chinese government and its operations within Iran and North Korea. This came to a head in August 2018, when Donald Trump signed into law a defence Bill banning US government agencies from buying Huawei equipment. In December of the same year, Ren’s daughter and company chief finance officer, Meng Wanzhou, was detained at Vancouver airport, with a view to extraditing her to the US to face criminal charges, sparking an international hostage stand-off as China subsequently imprisoned two Canadians accused of espionage.
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Huawei has consistently denied any improper behaviour, insisting it would never do anything to undermine the trust of its customers. But as the links between geopolitics and telecommunications networks intensify, security concerns over surveillance and control of communications grow, as technology gives governments new abilities to track user locations, censor online content and even use facial recognition software to target specific ethnic groups.
While she doesn’t offer up any definitive answers on Huawei’s culpability or its ties to the Chinese state, Dou provides an intriguing insight into how it became “the apple of Beijing’s eye”, from its Ox Horn Campus, “a vision of eclectic opulence that would have put Jay Gatsby himself to shame” to how Chinese officials are “willing to move mountains” to ensure the company’s survival.
