Anne Neuberger
When Ren Zhengfei founded Huawei in 1987, the Chinese telecommunications company had a few thousand dollars in the bank and an eye on reverse-engineering advanced foreign technology. By 1994, Huawei was producing switching equipment, the hardware and software that form the basis of modern telecommunications, and Ren was taking a meeting with Chinese Communist Party Secretary General Jiang Zemin. The Huawei chief executive observed that his company’s product was a matter of “national security” and that a country “that did not have its own switching equipment was like one that lacked its own military.” “Well said,” Jiang replied. From that moment on, business and government have been partners in the mission to keep China’s telecommunications secure.
Meanwhile, in the late 1990s and throughout the first decade of this century, the United States did not think much about its telecommunications dominance. Its leadership in the sector was unrivaled, and U.S. innovations—including 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies—were widely adopted and securely used around the world. But as the United States sat complacently in the top position, trusting that the strength of the free market would keep it there, China was carefully setting itself up as a challenger. Beijing poured resources into Huawei and other Chinese companies, positioning them to outcompete foreign firms. So successful was this effort that by 2012, Huawei telecom gear had been deployed across rural America, covering the bases that house U.S. nuclear weapons. This effectively provided the Chinese government with constant surveillance of the United States’ most sensitive capabilities and military operations. Huawei may not have been raking in profits from this venture, but for Beijing it was an intelligence coup.
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