Huawei’s founder and president Ren Zhengfei has hit back at the US campaign against his company, labelling the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, his daughter and the company’s chief financial officer, as “politically motivated” and asserting that Washington would not “crush” the Chinese group.
“I object to what the US has done,” Mr Ren said in an interview with the BBC when asked about his daughter’s arrest in Vancouver on sanctions-busting charges and her pending extradition to the US.
“This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable.”
The interview by the reclusive Mr Ren represents the latest step in a broad counteroffensive by the Chinese telecommunications group in response to US attempts to steer its allies away from using the company’s equipment.
On Monday, the Financial Times reported that British intelligence has concluded it was possible to mitigate the risk from using Huawei equipment in developing 5G networks.
The UK is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, along with the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Australia and the US have banned Huawei from building their 5G networks and New Zealand has blocked the company from working with Spark, one of its telecoms networks, on 5G. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand prime minister, said on Tuesday that the company could still operate there if it satisfied concerns raised by the country’s spy agency.
Washington, which has long viewed Huawei as a lightning rod for much of its angst with China more broadly — including intellectual property theft, industrial subsidies, spying and the country’s rising tech prowess — has sought to impose its views on allies.
A US delegation to Europe in November left the clear message that the UK and Germany must safeguard the security of their telecoms networks and supply chains, people familiar with the talks told the FT.
However, Huawei has in recent months come out fighting, taking to international media to make its case. Last month, Mr Ren denied that the company spied for China in a meeting with reporters at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, in what was only his third public interview.
“There is no way the US can crush us. The world needs Huawei because we are more advanced,” Mr Ren told the BBC. “Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we could just scale things down a bit. And because the US keeps targeting us, finding fault with us, it has forced us to improve our products and services.”
Mr Ren also said his company would maintain and could potentially increase its presence in the UK, suggesting that any distrust from Washington would simply redirect investment across the Atlantic.
“We will invest even more in the UK. Because if the US doesn’t trust us, then we will shift our investment from the US to the UK on an even bigger scale,” he said.
