Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has broken a lengthy silence to hit back at criticism levelled at the Chinese telecoms giant by western countries in recent months, claiming that the firm is not aiding Beijing in espionage. Mr Ren, who has not spoken to the foreign press since 2015, said that his company has “never received any request from any government to provide improper information”. The chief executive made the public appearance following the arrest of his daughter and Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver two months ago, who is alleged to have violated US sanctions on Iran. Huawei is the world’s biggest provider of telecoms equipment and will be a key partner for companies working to build next-generation 5G mobile networks. The company has come under fresh pressure after a Huawei executive arrested in Poland was accused of spying. Huawei has since sacked the employee. The arrest comes after months of heightened scrutiny from the likes of the US, Australia, Japan and the UK, which have raised questions about the cyber security risks posed by the telecoms firm.<doc-sep>Ren Zhengfei, the 74-year-old founder and president of Huawei, appeared before journalists in Shenzhen for a rare and wide-ranging discussion about the Chinese company’s future, its problems over 5G and security, and the arrest of his daughter in Canada. Below are excerpts from the session, as Mr Ren defended Huawei from its critics. On espionage and cyber security “Huawei has served 3bn customers in 30 years in 170 countries, and has a good safety record. There has never been a major problem. “Huawei is an independent business, we are committed to be on the side of our customers when it comes to cyber security and protecting privacy. We will never harm any nation or individual. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already clarified, no law in China requires any company to install backdoors. Huawei, and myself, have never received any request from any government to provide [improper] information. On his daughter “As Meng’s father, I miss her very much. “I trust the legal systems of Canada and the United States are open, just, and fair. After all the evidence is made open, we must rely on the decision of the court, and the just verdicts that follow. “I do not have access to the email correspondences between the US Department of Justice and the Canadian Department of Justice. In the future, if they were to make this evidence public, then I would be able to guess whether it is because Meng is my daughter that she was the first to [be detained] or not.” “As for our father-daughter relationship, we were close yet not close. The reason we are not close is that when she was little, I joined the military. For 11 months out of a year, I couldn’t be with my kids. For the one month I was back home, they had to go to school and do their homework after dinner. So our relationship during their childhood and teenage years was not close enough. “The second phase was my time at Huawei. I had to fight for the survival of the company. I spent 16 hours a day in the office and basically had no time for family. So for my three children, I was close to none of my three children. Especially my youngest daughter, I was even more distant from her. So all I can say is, as a father, I feel I owe them.” On countries rejecting Huawei “First, there are some customers who accept Huawei and some who don’t. It’s not a new problem — it’s always been the case. “When the people who don’t accept us are a few congressmen, or a minority, then because they do not represent the government, we will continue to actively communicate. If it becomes escalated to a government order, we’ll have to stop our sales there. “One of the major issues surrounding this debate is 5G. If you look at 4G there’s not much debate about it. For those products where there’s no debate as such, we’ll continue to drive sales. “If a small number of countries decide to no longer buy Huawei products, then we will [shift our focus to] better serve those countries who are fully happy to buy our equipment. We will build our networks to prove we are worth trusting. It’s a fair competition in technology, and I think this is fair. “The proposal coming from Poland [for Nato countries to ban Huawei] does not represent Nato, because this country carries too little weight. I think it’s really France and Germany who are better positioned to represent the whole of Nato. “But whether this [proposal] is accepted in the end, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter so much to us. We are not a public company, we don’t need a beautiful income statement. If some countries don’t buy our products, we can scale down. So long as we can feed ourselves we’ll always have a future.” On the US-China trade war “Huawei is not that big. How can a small sesame seed affect a conflict between the two great powers of US and China? Huawei is just a sesame seed, it does not play a role. “The trade war so far has not affected us in a major way. Our expected growth in 2019 is not greater than 20 per cent. “Now as you say, the West generally thinks there is ideology printed on to Huawei equipment. That’s as stupid as smashing textile machines during the industrial revolution. “We only provide equipment. They are run and controlled by operators, not controlled by Huawei. We should not go back to the old days of smashing textile machines. “First of all, one must believe that we have invested so much in R&D in all those years, we have put in so much effort. We are different to ZTE. We will not have the kinds of problems that ZTE has had. “In all of our operations, we have complied with the laws and regulations of each country, including export control laws and regulations of the United Nations, the United States and the EU. So this kind of thing should not happen to us.”<doc-sep>Bank of America CEO on raising minimum wage: It's an investment in our teammates President Joe Biden stops to talk to the media as he drives a Ford F-150 Lightning truck at Ford Dearborn Development Center, Tuesday, May 18, 2021, in Dearborn, Mich. A visual representation of the digital Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin on December 07, 2017 in London, England. Ethereum's 27-year-old founder says we're in a crypto bubble. Did it just burst? Vitalik Buterin, co-founder and inventor of Ethereum speaks during Samsung Developer Conference in San Jose, California on October 30, 2019. QAnon is spreading in churches. These pastors are trying to stop it Left: James Kendall is the Senior Pastor at Grace Community Church in Madera, California. Kendall gave a sermon at his church warning congregants about QAnon. Right: Ben Marsh is a pastor at First Alliance Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has seen members of his church share conspiracy theories on their social media pages. Carlos Ghosn says he has to tell his side of the story TOPSHOT - Former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn looks on before addressing a large crowd of journalists on his reasons for dodging trial in Japan, where he is accused of financial misconduct, at the Lebanese Press Syndicate in Beirut on January 8, 2020. - Ghosn arrived at the venue, making his first public appearance since skipping bail in Japan. The fugitive tycoon, who denies any wrongdoing, skipped bail while awaiting trial on multiple charges of financial misconduct including allegedly under-reporting his compensation to the tune of $85 million. (Photo by JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images) BTS and McDonald's launch exclusive meal with two new dipping sauces B25_25594_R James Bond (Daniel Craig) prepares to shoot in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (CNN Business) — Huawei’s founder and president Ren Zhengfei remained silent in public while his company suffered a terrible 2018, including bans and warnings against its products in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. He even kept quiet when his daughter, Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada. But just days after a Huawei executive was arrested in Poland on allegations of spying, he broke his silence, defending his company and praising US President Donald Trump during a rare interview with foreign media. The 13-page transcript of the discussion, translated by Huawei, sheds new light on the reclusive billionaire. He wants to emulate Apple and Steve Jobs The United States and other Western governments have been wary of Huawei for years, concerned that the company is ultimately under the authority of the Chinese government. Asked what Huawei would do if the Chinese government asked the company for information on a foreign country, Ren pointed to Apple (AAPL) as a guiding light. “We will never do anything to harm the interests of our customers. Apple is an example we look up to in terms of privacy protection. We will learn from Apple,” he said. In 2016, Apple refused to help the FBI break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters, calling the directive “an overreach by the US government.” The FBI instead purchased a tool from a third-party that let it hack into the device. Huawei has repeatedly dismissed concerns that its products pose a national security risk and maintains that the company is completely owned by its employees. Ren said he personally owns 1.14% of Huawei, but hinted that he could follow Apple founder Steve Jobs’ example and reduce his stake. Jobs reportedly sold nearly all of his shares in Apple after he was forced out of the company in the 1980s, and again in the 1990s when he lost faith in the company’s direction. “The stake that Steve Jobs had in Apple was 0.58%. That means there is still potential for my stake to be further diluted. I should learn from Steve Jobs,” he said. He’s willing to shut down Huawei Ren spent years building Huawei into a multi-billion dollar global smartphone and telecommunications equipment company. But he said he would rather shutter the business than submit to any request by the Chinese government to spy on its behalf. “We will certainly say no to any such request,” said Ren. “We would rather shut Huawei down than do anything that would damage the interests of our customers in order to seek our own gains,” he said. He’s not close to his three children Ren’s daughter was thrust into the middle of a diplomatic storm when she was arrested in Canada at the request of US authorities last month on suspicion of breaking sanctions on Iran. Meng was released on bail, and remains under house arrest in Vancouver, where she is due back in court on February 6. Although he said he misses her very much, Ren was ambivalent about his relationship with his daughter. “It’s a close relationship in some aspects and not so close in others,” he said. “Throughout her childhood, I was in the military, which means that each year I was away for 11 months, spending one month with my family,” he said. “Our connection during her childhood and adolescence was not that strong.” In later years, he said, he was fighting for the survival of Huawei, regularly working 16-hour days. He admitted that he is not close to any of his three children, but feels indebted to them. He wants to live forever When asked when he will retire from Huawei, 74-year-old Ren made a crack about immortality. “The timing of my retirement will depend on when Google can invent a new medicine that will allow people to live forever. I’m waiting for that medicine,” he said. Google parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) and other Silicon Valley companies have bet big on research and technology that can one day “make death optional.” Ren seems keen to stay around as long as possible. Underscoring his company’s commitment to clients, he talked about a visit he made to a remote Himalayan village near Mount Everest.<doc-sep>NEW A vastly improved search engine helps you find the latest on companies, business leaders, and news more easily.<doc-sep>
Huawei would never allow China's government to access customer data, even if Beijing requested it, the CEO and founder of the company repeatedly emphasized Tuesday, amid continued political pressure on the Chinese technology giant. In a rare sit down with international media, Ren Zhengfei addressed concerns raised by the U.S. government, which has warned that the company's equipment could allow the Chinese government to have a backdoor into a nation's telecommunications network. Ren, speaking Mandarin and using a company-provided translator, told the group that Huawei has never handed data to Beijing. "When it comes to cybersecurity and privacy protection we are committed to be sided with our customers. We will never harm any nation or any individual," Ren told the journalists assembled at Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen, China. "China's ministry of foreign affairs has officially clarified that no law in China requires any company to install mandatory back doors. Huawei and me personally have never received any request from any government to provide improper information," Ren added. Ren Zhengfei, founder and chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies, left, speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Shenzhen, China, in January. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images Ren, a former soldier in the People's Liberation Army and a current Communist Party member, has faced several years of questions about his relationship between those organizations and his company. Despite his history, Ren told the representatives of the international media that his longtime affiliation with China's authoritarian party would not affect his ability to fight against that same government if it requested user data. "The values of a business entity is customer first, is customer centricity. We are a business organization so we must follow business rules. And in that context I don't see close connection between my personal political believe and our business actions we are going to take as a business entity. And I think I already made myself very clear right now, we will definitely say no to such a request," Ren said, when asked by CNBC about whether his ties to China's ruling party would stop him from fighting any kind of data request. Praises Trump Huawei has recently faced mounting global pressure. The company has been blocked from selling equipment to the U.S. for many years, but other countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Japan, have in recent months also excluded the company from supplying components for the next generation of mobile internet networks, known as 5G. And his daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who is chief financial officer of the company, was arrested in Canada recently at the request of the U.S. Meng has been accused of fraud related to payments that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. But Ren actually praised the U.S. president. "For President Trump as a person, I still believe he is a great president," he said. "In the sense that he was bold to slash taxes. And I think that's conducive for the development of industries in the United States." Meanwhile in Poland, law enforcement arrested a Huawei executive alleging that he colluded with a local official to commit espionage. Polish officials have said that the charges relate to the individual's actions and not those of Huawei. The Chinese firm also denies involvement. Ren was asked several times during the Tuesday discussion to comment on the detention of his daughter, but he declined to go into detail, citing the ongoing status of the legal case. Instead, he said he "trusts" the U.S. and Canadian legal systems are open and he will await the judgement of the court. 'Challenges and difficulties'