The Ambitious and Ambiguous Rise of Huawei as a Telecom Giant

This story of Chinese entrepreneur Ren Zhengfei, and the empire he built, is rich in details but short on sharp insights

- Sundeep Khanna

Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou's House of Huawei promises to unravel the enigma of the Chinese telecom titan Ren Zhengfei, and how he built the world's largest telecommunications equipment company by revenue. That it ends up more like a diligent history lesson than a sharp exposé isn't entirely Dou's fault.

The world has been ambiguous about Huawei's status and can't quite make up its mind about it. Add to that its vague ownership as a privately held company, and it is understandable why Dou's book is straightforward and honest, but a little flat. Dou doesn't dig deep or dazzle with analysis; instead, she lays out the saga of Huawei's rise with the earnestness of a corporate biographer. What you get is a chronicle of a company and its founder that is equal parts ambition, grit and geopolitical lightning rod. What you don't get is a bit of skepticism to spice up the narrative.

A CLASSIC UNDERDOG TALE

The case against Huawei, as Dou outlines it, hinges on two planks: its cozy ties to Beijing and whispers of trade-secret theft. But here's the kicker—American whistle-blower Edward Snowden's leaks from March 2014 revealed that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had its eyes all over Huawei, snooping through emails and piggybacking on its infrastructure to spy globally. So, while the West wags its finger at Huawei's supposed sins, the hypocrisy stinks louder than a vomit break during one of Huawei's infamous crunch-time coding marathons when the company's programmers worked non-stop on projects, only taking a break to throw up.

Meanwhile, the Chinese company started in 1987 by Ren, a former military engineer, was quietly filing more patents annually than anyone else on the planet, a detail Dou notes but doesn't quite wrestle with.