Economic enemies

A corporate biography becomes a narrative of the global tech war

- RISHI RAJ

VA DOU'S HOUSE of Huawei arrives at a moment of intense global reordering, where technology, geopolitics and economic nationalism collide.

The timing of this book couldn't be more significant. It enters the public discourse in the aftermath of the US-China trade war that intensified under Donald Trump's presidency. However, much before Trump's rhetoric—steeped in claims that the world had taken unfair advantage of the US by imposing steep tariffs on its goods—took centrestage, the standoff with Huawei had peaked, with consequences for the company.

At the heart of the book is a nuanced and well-researched chronicle of how this once obscure telecom firm, founded by a former People's Liberation Army engineer Ren Zhengfei, evolved into a global technology behemoth. But more than just a corporate biography, the book operates as a narrative lens of the global tech war, one that straddles national security, surveillance, trade policy, and the ideological rift between liberal democracies and authoritarian capitalism.

The attack on Huawei was a result of not only a strategic threat, but also a competitive one. Huawei's meteoric rise, powered by low prices, aggressive innovation, and strong state backing, allowed it to beat American and European rivals in global telecom markets. By the mid-2010s, it was leading the world in telecom infrastructure deployment. That success, ironically, sealed its fate.

The flashpoint came in December 2018, when Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's CFO and Ren's daughter, at the behest of the US department of justice. Charged with violating sanctions against Iran, her detention sparked a diplomatic firestorm and tit-for-tat arrests by China, underscoring how deeply entangled Huawei had become in global geopolitics.