Is there any other company that better captures the dual way China is perceived internationally than Huawei? As one of China’s few market-based telecommunications equipment providers, the company is in many ways a symbol of China’s high-tech, global future. And yet this is the same company frequently tarred as a security threat by foreign journalists who play up the military background of founder Ren Zhangfei and point with some justification to China’s dismal record in Internet security and online freedom.
How do people in the telecommunications industry think about Huawei? And what is really going on with the Shenzhen-based ICT conglomerate? Joining Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn this week to talk about Ren Zhangfei and the company he built are two experts in the Chinese telecommunications market: David Wolf, president of the ICT consulting firm Wolf Group Asia, and Will Moss, a Chinese public relations expert who works in the telecommunications industry.