Well that didn’t take long. It was in our 6 am post today that we said Huawei and/or ZTE would quickly become election fodder, and now we know how quick. The first blow comes via the Obama campaign, accusing Mitt Romney, then CEO of Bain Capital, of “putting profits from China ahead of security for America.”
“This whole xenophobia about Chinese companies isn’t healthy or necessarily beneficial for the World Economy,” comments Alicia – and since when did American politicians care about that?
Anyway, now that Huawei is no longer the company “you’ve never heard of,” as 60 Minutes put it in its Sunday telecast, you can expect to be hearing about it more than you want. At least until mid-November, anyway, when Americans can resume not caring. Youku video for those in China after the jump.
(H/T @davesgonechina)
It’s really disappointing that Huawei (actually a company that specifically didn’t partner or get favors from the Chinese government when a lot of their competitors were) is tied up in this. What is confounding is why Ren Zhengfei doesn’t come out of his shell and start giving open press interviews specifically addressing his time with and connections to the military. I imagine that the connections are far less damning than the whole world wants to think (if there are any connections at ALL) but the world won’t know because the one man who is able to talk about this and put a positive spin on the company frankly refuses to say ANYTHING at all!
The company needs to hire a Western (or frankly any) PR firm to sort this mess out.
Every country should ban all Chinese companies… either that or force them to accept a 51% government stake in their overseas companies. all Chinese companies doing business overseas are just an extension of the Party. All large Chinese companies are run by Party representatives. Actually, the secretive role of the party in Chinese companies means that not one Chinese company listed on US stock exchanges meets the transparency requirements required to list there. I think Obama is on the right track and the round up of Party firms should be expanded. letting any Chinese company do business in the West is a security threat.
Huawei wouldnt disclose details about the communist party body that operates within Huawei.