Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic It is nearly impossible to go a day in China without touching some part of Huawei’s empire. The Chinese technology giant sells a variety of consumer electronics, from TVs and smart home systems to smartphones. Its telecommunications networks and data centres keep the population online; its autonomous driving solutions are embedded in a growing number of electric cars. It designs semiconductors, builds solar panels and even has hotels. And it also operates surveillance systems for local governments, while harnessing its vast purchasing and distribution power to pressure suppliers and competitors. It is no exaggeration to call it “China’s most powerful company,” as Eva Dou does in her new book, House of Huawei. The Washington Post journalist and former China correspondent has written an authoritative account of a company that has become both a byword for China’s rising technological supremacy and a flashpoint in US-China relations. Huawei is a hugely ambitious company. Since its founding in 1987 in Shenzhen it has come to dominate global telecommunication networks through strategic technology bets. Along the way it has attracted increasing scrutiny from governments outside China who fear that Huawei’s network equipment enables Beijing’s spying. Yet, little is known about the inner workings of this mysterious company. It was thrust into the global spotlight in 2018 following the arrest of its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Canada. The US sought to extradite Meng, also the daughter of Huawei’s enigmatic founder Ren Zhengfei, over her role in the company’s business in sanctioned Iran. The book narrates the drama in detail and explains why Huawei found itself at the centre of so much controversy. It is a tale that sits at the heart of the most significant geopolitical relationship today and takes the reader a long way in understanding why Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over the fate of a company that has done so much to bolster China’s technological ecosystem and extend its influence overseas. Washington pressured allies to stop using Huawei’s 5G equipment, which the UK initially resisted before relenting, ordering the equipment to be stripped from public networks. Donald Trump first imposed sanctions on Huawei in 2019 during his first presidency, restricting some US companies from doing business with it over national security concerns. The action turned Huawei into a martyr in China. The assault from Washington continued under President Joe Biden, who further tightened restrictions on the company. Beijing has gone to great lengths to support Huawei through its turmoil after it was cut off from critical foreign technology that it used in products. The government lavished it with subsidies, pressured customers to buy its products over imported alternatives, and spared it from any action during a tech crackdown that tamed the power of China’s other tech giants, Tencent and Alibaba. Now, Trump’s choice for secretary of state Marco Rubio in the incoming US administration points to another turbulent four years for Huawei. Rubio recently penned an op-ed for the Miami Herald saying Huawei’s goal is “global domination”, calling it “less a telecom company than it is a geopolitical asset of the Chinese Communist party”. Huawei insists that it is a private company and that the government does not interfere with its business or the security of its products. Meng’s arrest forced Huawei to open up to the outside world. The media-shy Ren gave interviews to foreign media as part of a charm offensive to aid his daughter’s case. Dou chronicles Ren’s life — from his childhood growing up in poverty in Guizhou, a mountainous province in south-west China, to running the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker — in a way that helps the reader understand what motivates this notoriously ruthless engineer.Huawei developed a reputation for generosity towards government officials and telecoms executives, paying for international travel and hosting lavish banquetsHuawei’s first business was importing telephone switches before building its own, cheaper versions, copying foreign designs in the process. It later benefited from a government policy to rip out foreign technology in China’s communications network. Huawei developed a reputation for generosity towards government officials and telecoms executives, paying for international travel and hosting lavish banquets at its campus. Dou portrays Ren as an expert networker, including sending birthday cakes to retired telecoms experts who had helped Huawei. There are many unanswered questions about Huawei that are the root of its troubles with the US. What is its relationship with the Chinese Communist party? Does its technology facilitate Beijing’s spying overseas? What is Ren’s relationship with the People’s Liberation Army, where he used to be an engineer? Did Huawei’s early technological innovations in router technology come, as its critics say, off the back of rampant intellectual property theft from western rivals that it then went on to annihilate? Dou does not give a definitive answer to these questions but eloquently lays out the available facts and allows readers to draw their own conclusions. She is also transparent about reporting limits in understanding this purposefully opaque company. The reader is left with the impression that political support has been instrumental to Huawei’s rise and that Beijing has a strong vested interest to see it succeed.House of Huawei is at its best when describing how the company won the fight to dominate global network communication systems. Chinese tech companies are renowned for their brutally long hours and dedicated work culture. But none so much as the “wolf warrior” Huawei, which dispatched workers through the Sars pandemic in 2003 to win contracts over foreign companies that pulled back its workforce during the health crisis and defied official warnings to exit countries in turmoil during the Arab Spring, sending engineers to fix equipment broken by protesters. Huawei reflects the rise of many other Chinese companies that have ventured into sectors dominated by the west. Initially, rivals dismissed the company, saying it could not innovate. That proved to be a fatal error, as Huawei came to dominate the rollout of 5G technology and has set its eyes on ever more ambitious projects.While the book provides a neat account of Huawei’s growing dominance in network communications, it does not cover its newer businesses that it sees as the company’s future, including data centres, generative AI and autonomous driving. But it does give the reader a balanced and detailed account of a company that has weathered multiple existential crises and emerged more powerful than ever.Following Meng’s return to China in late 2021, the brief period of openness ended. It stopped courting foreign journalists and providing detailed financial breakdowns in annual reports. It did not co-operate with Dou on the book. As Huawei retreats from the limelight and reporting on this company has grown more difficult, a book describing its origins and place in Chinese corporate history is more needed than ever. House of Huawei: Inside the Secret World of China’s Most Powerful Company by Eva Dou Abacus £25/Portfolio $34, 448 pagesEleanor Olcott is the FT’s China Technology Correspondent in Beijing Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X
