
US has underestimated Huawei, says founder - howard941
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/21/there-will-be-conflict-huawei-founder-says-us-underestimates-companys-strength
======
EastToWest
Good job on picking one sentence in a 150-minute interview to serve an agenda.
No wonder people here say "This doesn't make any sense" \-- because it
doesn't.

The actual interview contains a lot more information. For example, Ren urged
people to not go overly nationalistic, thanked companies in the US for working
together, urged people to not blame US companies, explained his thought in
detail on recent events, how to attract talents etc.

~~~
abakus
Just FYI:

Huawei is one of the first companies that promoted the "996" schedule.
[https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU](https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU)

Huawei started the trend of laying off engineers once they reach 35 years old
in China.

~~~
mensetmanusman
They also recently had an internal bounty program that gave workers
promotions/bonuses for any internal trade secrets/inventions they could
acquire from western technology companies. That’s the spirit!

~~~
maxmcorp
I remember several cases back from the eighties where US intelligence pilfered
European trade secrets.

~~~
acct1771
Only several?

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ddoolin
Huawei and China will have a hard time finding any sympathy here, considering
the companies they outright ban or block, or even just cut the legs off. Have
any such US companies responded like this? It feels childish/immature to me,
particularly given the circumstances & context.

~~~
impostir
I may be misinformed, but I have never heard of China specifically targeting 1
company like this. Sure, China blocks Facebook and Amazon, but its not a
targeted hit. China blocks everyone. I am not claiming that this makes it
fine, merely that it seems different.

~~~
k__
Doesn't it make China worse?

US bans a company because it's problematic, not because "It's part of the evil
west"

~~~
honeybee93
China limits all foreign companies from accessing it's market. The true reason
is to provide a safe heaven to allow local companies develop it's own
technology and capability before killed off by foreign companies. During 80s
when China is start to open up the market, China has literally no private
enterprises with good capability on it's own. Foreign companies from US and
Europe have too advanced of technology and scale simply because they have been
developing much longer while China was being war ravaged. These companies
would easily take over the china market and kill any local enterprises. Look
at the affect of the ban, China now as pretty good technology on it's own and
local companies with the scale that can compete with foreign companies.
Foreign companies now entering China find difficulty partly because of the
regulatory environment but also because of local competition is much stronger.
I would argue that Apple sales decrease in China is not mainly from regulation
but competition from Huawei xiaomi and oppo. Now contrast this with Europe and
Canada, especially in the tech market, no one has home grown technology
companies that are big enough to compete with the US. Many homegrown companies
went away because of it cannot compete with the US. Is would surely damage
local economy right? I think the advantages and disadvantages to free market
must be carefully balanced.

~~~
robotzero
It is also duplicitous when China closes its market off. Insofar as the point
that it's cutting off foreign companies is so that it can filter in the
control it has over it's population. You try to dance around that fact which
is why you need to reconsider your angle on all of your comments. The actual
truth is that this is a move necessary on a multitude of facets: Chinese
spying, Nearly cutting off American technology supplies to China implying a
HUGE blockage of intellectual property as well as devices and chips, Starving
the state proxy Huawei, Creates a dialogue of concessions China could make,
etc. This has created a chokepoint where American interests can act more
nobley to circumvent a totalitarian state. Your slant could read as anti-
American but more accurately I think it is more pro-Chinese or perhaps you are
just missing the bigger picture.

------
fspeech
Not sure why the Guardian only picked parts to make him sound as inflammatory
as possible. What about honestly reporting that his saying that his daughter
uses Apple and he wants her to have the choice and people should not be too
nationalistic about it. What about his profusely praising his US suppliers and
consultants for helping him succeed. His overall tone is fairly noncombatative
given the circumstances. Here is a transcript
[https://m.huxiu.com/article/300415.html](https://m.huxiu.com/article/300415.html)

~~~
fspeech
He said at one time they signed the deal to sell Huawei to a US company
(Motorola, I believe) and were waiting for the buyer’s board to approve the
deal. He said they wanted to succeed as a US company (“wearing cowboy hats” in
his words). After the deal fell through, his younger colleagues voted to not
try to find another buyer. He warned his younger colleagues then that there
would be conflict with US if they succeeded too well. Interesting tidbits.

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b_tterc_p
This doesn’t make any sense. It’s kind of funny. His statements imply that
he’ll show the US by still being a powerful business... but I don’t see how
that changes anything about it’s relationship with the US?

I think he’s just putting on a strongman face because otherwise this is going
to substantially weaken Huawei as a company.

~~~
addicted
Well, to be fair to the founder, the US has already rolled back the
restrictions it placed on Huawei, giving it a 90 day reprieve instead of
imposing it immediately as they did earlier.

So clearly Huawei actually does have some leverage here that the US did not
originally factor in.

That being said, I don’t see how it benefits Huawei for their founder to take
this combative stance unless they think that the US is doing this solely to
kneecap Huawei and there is no chance they will allow them to compete even if
the allegations are proven untrue.

~~~
b_tterc_p
I'm not sure I would attribute that to Huawei leverage so much as US Telecoms
depending on them in the short term and needing time to switch. But yeah.

~~~
robbiemitchell
I'd call that leverage

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bertomartin
I can understand why the US wouldn't want them to build out the 5G network in
the US, but it's kinda overstepping to push other countries to deny them that
access. That's for other countries to decide on their own. In addition,
deeming the company a national security risk is kinda ridiculous. and blocking
companies in the US from selling to them or doing business with them is simply
anti-competitive obviously. I feel like the result will be huawei developing
their own homegrown technology and bringing even more competition to US
companies. It's obviou s they're capable of developing advanced tech w/o
simply copying (I mean they're ahead in 5G). And once they go down that route
there's no coming back because they wouldn't wanna make the same mistake
twice. can't understand the strategy by this admin., seems kinda dumb to me

~~~
bitbrewer
Right on spot.

~~~
suff
Who do you work for?

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/20/18508915/cia-huawei-
china...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/20/18508915/cia-huawei-china-
security-agencies-funds-report)

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peteretep
Well that sounds like a good way to calm any national security concerns tho

~~~
NDizzle
Yep. Good luck, buddy.

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sjg007
You can reverse the situation. Would China hypothetically allow Qualcomm,
Cisco deployments for their 5g networks? Even with encryption there is a lot
to learn from the metadata and as we really accelerate to IoTs potential for
major economic disruption.

~~~
sureaboutthis
I'm pretty sure they did in the past. Not as sure now.

~~~
jorblumesea
Sure, after turning over any IP and source code and being installed in a few
token places. Hardly any kind of real adoption, more like a forced IP
transfer.

------
strooper
Sometimes it feels like the conflict is partially about the 5G technology
implementation.

What does 5G technology have that is making everyone so sensitive? Will it
require complete overhaul of the existing hardware (so big business
opportunity)? Will it enable something extraordinary, apart from the data
speed, that can not be done with the existing network technologies? I am
curious...

~~~
bravo22
Huawei sells 5G equipment. Think the equivalent of routers, switches but for
cellular network. If they have backdoors then China can intercept and disrupt
communication across many countries. That's the concern in a nutshell.

~~~
aiCeivi9
They did the same with 3G/4G, they totally outpriced Nokia Siemens Networks.
Why ban it now?

~~~
WillPostForFood
The current administration sees China as a huge threat, the previous several
administrations (republican and democrat) did not. Or if they did, they
thought the way to deal with the threat was through economic cooperation.

~~~
Para2016
China has been a threat to US interests in the Pacific for decades. Now China
is the regional hegemonic power which dwarfs the weak US Pacific partnership.
China's international influence will continue to grow and they will likely
achieve their 100 year plan. That's not really fearmongering, China has plenty
of problems but they will eventually succeed.

~~~
pishpash
I like how you take an overly expansive and hegemonic definition of US
interests and make it into another country's problem completely. Nice work.

------
siffland
“We can also make the same chips as the US chips, but it doesn’t mean we won’t
buy them.”

Does that mean they are going to steal IP and pirate it? Yes a silly question
because i don't know what chips they are and who holds the IP for them, but
did he just say we don't care we will just steal your stuff and make it
ourselves?

~~~
majia
This is really a misleading interpretation. In the original context, he meant
Huawei will buy products regardless if they are made by Chinese or US
suppliers. One doesn’t need to trust everything Huawei claims, but taking
quotes without proper context doesn’t help the discussion.

------
mnl
I don't understand why everybody is dismissing any chance of retaliation
against for instance Apple. With this they're killing a major player outside
China, that's about half of their smartphone sales ($52B revenue). I don't
think China is going to take it just like that.

~~~
freeflight
Because this is already framed as retaliation for "China being evil and
stealing our jobs and IP".

So once the actual Chinese retaliation is gonna hit, it can be played up for
full effect as "Look at what they are doing now! They never stop attacking
us!" to further rile up the sentiments.

~~~
close04
It probably won't be "retaliation" as people imagine it: the government
stepping in and taking aim at Apple. Chinese consumers might decide (be
encouraged) to buy more Huawei and less Apple. It can be something as indirect
as making the US the devil on every possible channel or as direct as including
a "patriotic" point in their scoring systems. There's a myriad of ways China
could hit at Apple or other US companies without the government directly
executing them.

~~~
westiseast
I for one feel like there’s actually limited play in this - America already
_is_ and has been the boogeyman for years.

Whipping up nationalistic sentiment and expecting consumers to fall in line is
a transparent tactic and younger, affluent consumers are fairly cynical. It
rarely has any long term effect either (see previous nationalistic anti-Japan
and anti-Korea consumer boycotts).

Also don’t underestimate the power of Apple brand - it’s not like banning
Google or Facebook which had very limited presence in Chinese minds. Moves to
limit access to Apple products, tax them, ban them etc would not go down well.

The government could offer more subsidies to domestic companies, better credit
terms or financial incentives, but then that’s just China paying for the cost
of Trumps tariffs - Trump wins.

That said, Huawei and other phone makers have been taking chunks out of Apple
by making better phones at competitive prices - that’s what actually moves
consumers.

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chirau
China has a club of rich and powerful people. This guy is one of them, he is
in it and obviously has friends in high places. I wouldn't be surprised if
China decides to either ban or raise taxes on companies like Apple. At the end
of the day, China does have some leverage on US manufacturing. This is no
longer just Huawei. It's pretty much China versus USA. The challenger versus
the incumbent.

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Animats
It's like being hit with "national security letters" in the US. You can't talk
about them and may have to spy on your customers. Huawei gets no benefit from
putting surveillance features in their gear. It's something they're required
to do.

It's been a long time since US telcos could build or buy switches with no
surveillance features. All the way through 1ESS, no Western Electric switch
had built-in surveillance. People had to go into the central office and hook
up wires to listen in.

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dirkg
The US is doing what it does so well, acting as a bully and using its
economic/military status to abuse its power.

The whole thing is total hypocrisy - the US spies/steals from other countries
as a matter of policy and we spend trillions on it, but its ok because we're
the 'good' guys. China is becoming a threat so any means must be used to
suppress them, since we can't very well invade China like we do weaker
countries.

what exactly has Huawei done which is so bad anyway? Any why should anyone
trust the US govt, esp this govt?

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impostir
Isn't this just the ZTE ban all over again? Trump seems to completely believe
that China owns these companies, so targeting the companies becomes a
legitimate strategy in his trade war. I would be surprised if any Chinese
company was completely free from Party control, but that doesn't intrinsically
justify the ban. I would also be surprised if any American tech company was
completely free from NSA influence. I will be surprised if the ban lasts, but
it has already hurt US credibility as a reasonable trade partner.

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mizchief2
I wasn't really on board with banning Huawei until I read this article.

