3 min read
While Huawei continues to show signs of growth, many countries led by US have started to boycott Huawei. Earlier this year Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was extradited for her involvements in fraudulent practices. Her father and founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei has remained silent until today. In his interview with BBC, Ren talked about her daughter’s arrest and the US policy in general.
“There’s no way the US can crush us”
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei describes the arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, the company's chief financial officer, as politically motivated
[Tap to expand] https://t.co/q3VgXLlAM7 pic.twitter.com/AbiGbmEp0h
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 18, 2019
US had persuaded Australia, UK and New Zealand to not use Huawei’s equipment for the 5G transition. Huawei is the world’s biggest provider of telecom equipments and was banking on the transition for continued growth. Despite the hurdles, Ren remains confident that Huawei will be able to survive America’s politically motivated act. Talking to BBC, he said, “Firstly, I object to what the U.S. has done. This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable,”
For Ren, Huawei’s technological prowess is good enough starting point and gives them a headstart in the 5G market that is poised to take the world by storm. He’s confident that their achievements can’t be marred by political agenda. In fact he said that if required, they can even scale down their operations. “There’s no way the U.S. can crush us,” said Ren. “The world needs us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit.”
As relations with US continue to deteriorate, Huawei plans to move their investments to UK. UK is yet to make a final decision on whether Huawei products can be used or not. When asked about Huawei’s future in UK, Ren said, “We will invest even more in the UK. Because if the U.S. doesn’t trust us, then we will shift our investment from the U.S. to the UK on an even bigger scale.”
Perhaps the highlight of the interview was Ren’s reluctance to give in to US pressure. “There’s no way the US can crush us,” he said. When asked what if US is able to convince its allies to boycott Huawei equipment, Ren said, “If the lights go out in West, the East will still shine. And if the North goes dark, then there is still the South. US does not represent the whole world”
Ren criticized the US for misusing its power. He raised objection over the arrest of his daughter. However, he quickly pointed out that the arrest had made no impact on Huawei’s business. In fact, since her arrest he said they were “growing even faster.”
