Table of Contents
Is Huawei Actually Spying for the Chinese Government, and Why Does the US View 5G as a Weapon?
Explore the rise of China’s tech giant in House of Huawei by Eva Dou. From Ren Zhengfei’s military roots to Meng Wanzhou’s arrest and the 5G race, understand the geopolitical battle defining the future of global technology and privacy.
The headlines only scratch the surface of this geopolitical thriller. If you want to understand the intricate web of espionage accusations, “wolf culture” management, and the true cost of the US-China tech war, grab your copy of House of Huawei and see what is really happening behind the closed doors of Shenzhen.
Genres
Technology and the Future, Economics, Politics, Biography, Memoir
Introduction: Huawei’s rise to near-global domination
House of Huawei (2025) explores the history of one of China’s most powerful and mysterious companies. Over the last few decades, Huawei has quietly transformed into a technological empire, alarming foreign governments – the US in particular.
In December 2018, a woman was detained at Vancouver International Airport. Her name was Meng Wanzhou, and she faced extradition to the US on fraud charges.
Meng was the CFO of the Chinese tech company Huawei. And according to US officials, Huawei posed a significant threat to US democracy.
Meng’s arrest put Huawei in the spotlight. For a while, it seemed like everyone was asking the same questions.
What was the story behind this powerful company? What was the background of Huawei’s reclusive CEO, Ren Zhengfei?
And was it true that Huawei was spying on behalf of the Chinese government?
Obviously, there’s a lot to unpack here. The story of Huawei is a long and complex one, spanning several decades, and involving a tangled geopolitical web.
This summary is an overview of key events in Huawei’s history, providing context for Meng’s arrest. You’ll gain some insight into one of the world’s most important companies, and understand why it set off alarm bells in Washington.
But before we get to Meng, we need to start with her father – Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei.
Foundation and growth
Ren Zhengfei is now one of the richest men in the world. But he came from humble origins. Born in 1944, Ren grew up in the hills of Guizhou province in China, where food and clothing were often scarce.
After university, Ren worked for the Chinese military – something that would later attract scrutiny from Huawei’s critics. But according to Ren, his work had nothing to do with communications technology. He was a simple construction worker.
In 1978, Ren joined the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. Again, this was something that would one day raise questions. How closely was Huawei connected to the party, given Ren’s own connections?
Being a member of the CCP no doubt helped Ren to advance in his career. Now, he was part of the establishment.
In the ‘80s, China was beginning to experiment with capitalism. A vast new city was being built on the southern coast – the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.
It was intended as a kind of buffer zone. China could benefit from capital and technology from neighboring Hong Kong, while staying protected from the so-called “moral corruption” of capitalism.
When Ren first visited Shenzhen, he was amazed by what he saw – an exciting new world with many business opportunities.
In 1987, Ren founded Huawei in Shenzhen. Originally, it was a startup that made and sold telephone switches. But Ren had big ambitions for his company, and he wanted to produce his own products.
By the early ‘90s, Huawei’s aim was to make a digital telephone switch that could cope with ten thousand phone calls at once. Ren had assembled a promising team of young engineers who were up to the task.
However, working conditions were brutal. Engineers worked long hours in a stiflingly hot building, taking naps on mattresses when they reached breaking point. One even had to have emergency surgery for a detached cornea.
Still, through hard, relentless work, Huawei began to get results. And all the while, the CCP was looking on approvingly. There were clear benefits to Huawei’s work on telephone switches. As Ren himself declared, “A country without its own program-controlled switches is like one without an army.”
The CCP agreed. It was also interested in other ways that Huawei technology could be used – surveillance, for instance.
By the mid-’90s, Huawei had successfully manufactured the first advanced Chinese telephone switch. This meant that China was no longer dependent on foreign technology.
But while Huawei was flourishing in its home country, Ren now had even bigger ambitions. It was time to go international.
Rise to power
One way to enter the competitive international market at the time was to work for “rogue regimes” – countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran.
In the late ‘90s, the global telecommunications market was dominated by Western companies, such as America’s Lucent Technologies and Sweden’s Ericsson.
Working in countries such as Iraq allowed Huawei to get its foot in the door – though, of course, certain connections would later raise questions.
By 1998, a stint overseas had become a requirement for promotion at Huawei. Hardship postings in far-flung corners of the Earth became a rite of passage for employees.
Dodging bullets … catching typhoid fever … a narrow escape from a hippopotamus.… When Huawei employees returned home, they had stories to share.
Inspired by his previous career, Ren took a military approach to leadership. His workers were his “iron army” and his managers “generals.” New employees took part in military-style boot camps.
To a large extent, Ren’s tough, ambitious strategy paid off. Huawei did extremely well, expanding rapidly and opening offices all over the world.
In 2000, Forbes listed Ren as the third-richest man in China. An achievement to be sure, though one he would rather have kept private. In China, excessive wealth could be politically risky.
Still, when it came to the construction of Huawei’s new campus, Ren was happy to go all out. 350 acres of gleaming buildings, air-conditioned employee dorms, tennis courts, and swimming pools. A palatial hall displaying product demos was nicknamed “Saddam’s palace” by some staff members, after the opulent home of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Huawei had come a long way from its origins – those small, sweltering offices. However, some things hadn’t changed. The mattresses on the floor remained, and Huawei staff were working harder than ever.
By 2006, this led to a crisis, as employees started dying. Some were suicides. One employee who had been working long hours ended up with a brain infection. He fell into a coma, and died at the age of just twenty-five.
The deaths at Huawei caused a national scandal. At first, Ren claimed to be at a loss for answers. But to people on the outside, it was clear that the pressure cooker environment was taking its toll on employees. There was a human cost to Huawei’s success. Also, times were changing, and the younger generation knew their rights.
The culture at Huawei had to change. On Ren’s orders, overtime hours were cut. And the official story about the mattresses on the floor changed, too. Rather than being a sign of how hard employees had to work, they were an indication of thoughtful management – mats for daytime naps.
But while Huawei managed to overcome this particular crisis, there was more trouble to come.
International scrutiny
By 2010, the US had serious concerns about Huawei.
Now, this was nothing new. Huawei had been on Washington’s radar for about a decade, in part because of the company’s business in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
And in 2010, some US lawmakers were concerned by Huawei’s bid for an American 4G project. If the company won the bid, would the Chinese government be able to use Huawei equipment to spy on the US?
Ultimately, Huawei lost the bid. But the company was still keen to do business in the US, and to reassure officials that they could be trusted.
So, in 2011, Huawei wrote an open letter inviting the US government to carry out a formal investigation of the company. And, perhaps to Huawei’s surprise, the government took them up on it. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence decided to investigate.
By October 2012, it had concluded that Huawei did indeed pose a threat, as did rival Chinese company ZTE.
In the words of the report, “Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence, and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems.”
This report would have a long-lasting influence, particularly in the US. However, while other countries may have had their concerns, they were reluctant to take action against Huawei.
Indeed, despite the US report, Huawei was doing better than ever. By the end of 2012, it was the top telecom vendor in the world. Its products – including its new smartphones – reached three billion people.
But then came another setback. This time, it was Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who was under the spotlight.
Meng was now the CFO at Huawei. And in late 2012, it was discovered that her name appeared on the list of board members at a company named Skycom. Skycom was a shell company run by Huawei, designed to cover up their business in Iran.
The bank HSBC, which had an account with Skycom, was particularly alarmed by this discovery, given the US sanctions against Iran.
Meng defended her involvement, claiming that Huawei’s business in Iran was carried out in strict compliance with laws and regulations.
The storm had blown over for the time being. But this wouldn’t be the end of it.
It was becoming increasingly clear to Huawei that international business was a different beast. While the company’s fearless approach had worked well in China, it was now starting to get them in trouble.
Growing suspicions and Meng’s arrest
Over the years, Huawei continued to attract publicity for the wrong reason. For instance, their surveillance technology.
By late 2017, the Xinjiang region of China had become a surveillance state. More and more people – particularly members of the Uyghur ethnic minority – were being detained in so-called “reeducation centers.”
Although Huawei wasn’t the only company providing surveillance technology in this part of China, it was one of the main suppliers.
And shockingly, it was later discovered that Huawei technology had been intentionally designed to target Uyghurs. The Huawei facial recognition system had a “Uyghur alarm” feature, flagging certain faces.
When this was revealed in 2020, there was an international outcry. But by this point, Huawei had already been in the headlines for other reasons.
Let’s rewind to 2018. By that time, the US was becoming increasingly suspicious of Huawei. Growing alarm in Washington led the Trump administration to target the company and encourage other countries to ban Huawei from their 5G networks. It was in this tense climate that a warrant was issued for Meng Wanzhou’s arrest.
Meng, still the CFO at Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018. The charges related to bank fraud and wire fraud. At last, Meng’s involvement with Skycom in Iran had come back to haunt her.
Meng was detained in Canada. And just days later, China retaliated, with the arrests of two Canadian citizens in China. Essentially, it was hostage diplomacy.
There were no signs of a quick resolution. Meng would spend nearly three years under house arrest in Canada. And all the while, the US was taking a good hard look at Huawei.
Ren, who until now had mostly kept a low profile, started to speak out, talking publicly about how much he missed his daughter, and how much he admired President Trump.
But if this was an attempt at flattery, it didn’t work. The fallout had already begun. Prominent universities such as Oxford and Stanford started to distance themselves from Huawei. And Trump was continuing his anti-Huawei campaign.
In May 2019, Trump made a statement that labeled the company a national emergency. According to Trump, “[F]oreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services.”
Although he didn’t actually name Huawei, everyone knew who he was talking about. That very day, the US announced that Huawei would be subject to export controls – a disaster for the company. Like other tech companies, Huawei was dependent on US technology – operating systems and chips in particular.
Things were looking bleak.
The aftermath
For a while, Huawei still managed to do well in spite of the US sanctions. But then, in May 2020, the sanctions were tightened. From then on, the US would not sell its technology directly to Huawei. The new rules also restricted the sale of chips made with US technology.
For Huawei, the implications were devastating. The company was now in survival mode, trying to work out how to manufacture the chips they needed.
The US sanctions also had an influence on other countries. In July 2020, the UK announced that it would be removing Huawei equipment from 5G networks.
However, not all countries turned on Huawei. Mahathir Mohamad, the Malaysian prime minister, said that Malaysia would continue to use Huawei products. In his words, “Huawei may be powerful in spying. They can spy as much as they like, because we have no secrets.”
While Huawei struggled with the consequences of the US sanctions, the company’s CFO remained under house arrest. But at last, in September 2021, a decision was made – not by a judge, but by US president Joe Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping.
After some negotiations, the US agreed to drop the charges. Meng was released. She returned to China, where she received a hero’s welcome, while the Canadian prisoners held in China were also freed.
Since these dramatic events, the US has remained wary. And increasingly, other countries in the West have also become hostile to Huawei.
But despite these recent challenges, Huawei has been doing remarkably well. By August 2023, it had succeeded in launching a new smartphone.
Exactly how Huawei managed to do this remains a mystery. Did it violate US sanctions? Or did it somehow find a way to manufacture an advanced chip?
And, of course, there are other, bigger questions. For example, to what extent is Huawei involved in overseas surveillance on behalf of the Chinese government?
Huawei isn’t answering. But the uncomfortable truth we have to consider is this: Around the world – in countries like the US, as well as China – governments do force tech companies to assist them. They also force them to stay quiet.
So, it’s understandable that other countries are suspicious of Huawei and China. But equally, China will probably continue to be wary of the West.
And considering the current levels of mutual distrust between the US and China … you could even say there’s a new cold war.
Conclusion
In this summary to House of Huawei by Eva Dou, you’ve learned that Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, rose from humble beginnings to become one of the richest men in the world. After a stint in the military, Ren founded Huawei in 1987, initially selling telephone switches. Through relentless work and a tough, military-style culture, Huawei expanded rapidly, securing a dominant position in China’s telecom industry before going global.
However, Huawei’s international rise came with controversy. The company did business in sanctioned countries like Iran, prompting scrutiny from the US government. Concerns grew over Huawei’s close ties to the Chinese government, potential security risks, and its role in surveillance technology.
By 2018, tensions peaked when Ren’s daughter, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada on fraud charges linked to Iran. This sparked a diplomatic standoff and US sanctions, cutting Huawei off from critical technology.
Despite these setbacks, Huawei has remained resilient, launching new products and maintaining a global presence. But with rising tensions between the US and China, Huawei remains at the center of a modern tech cold war.