Robert Wihtol
How did a small Shenzhen-based manufacturer of telephone switches defy tough domestic and international competition to become a world leader in telecoms technology? And how did it manage to start producing its own 5G processors despite international sanctions specifically designed to prevent this from happening?
Telecoms equipment makers are notoriously publicity-shy. They guard their trade secrets jealously and manage their public images carefully. But even by the sector’s exacting standards, Huawei, currently the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, is exceptionally secretive. Its founder, Ren Zhengfei, studiously avoids the limelight, and media visits to the company’s huge campus in Dongguan in southern China are carefully curated and give away little.
In House of Huawei, Eva Dou lifts the veil of secrecy surrounding the tight-lipped company. Dou is a technology reporter for The Washington Post and spent seven years in China and Taiwan covering politics and technology for The Wall Street Journal. Tapping into her wide network of contacts in the sector, she has put together a thoroughly researched, credible and balanced account.
Dou anchors her narrative in China’s recent economic history. Ren established Huawei in 1987 in the Shenzhen special economic zone to manufacture telephone switches for China’s burgeoning economy. Before establishing the company, he worked for the engineering corps of the armed forces. According to Dou, Ren’s military work had little connection with his later work at Huawei but deeply influenced his management style.
Dou highlights two turning points. The shift from analogue to digital technology in the early 1990s allowed Huawei to expand production and begin supplying China’s state-owned enterprises. At that point, Ren made sure that his company was on the radar screen of the country’s top leaders. The second turning point came a decade later, when Huawei went global
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