HONG KONG ¨C At the sprawling Huawei Technologies Co. campus in Shenzhen, the food court¡¯s walls are emblazoned with quotes from the company¡¯s billionaire founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei. Then there¡¯s the research lab that resembles the White House in Washington. Perhaps the most curious thing, though, are three black swans paddling around a lake.
For Ren, a former People¡¯s Liberation Army soldier turned telecom tycoon, the elegant birds are meant as a reminder to avoid complacency and prepare for unexpected crisis. That pretty much sums up the state of affairs at Huawei, whose chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who¡¯s also Ren¡¯s daughter, is in custody in Canada and faces extradition to the United States on charges of conspiracy to defraud banks and violate sanctions on Iran.
The arrest places Huawei in the cross-hairs of an escalating technology rivalry between China and the U.S., which views the company, a critical global supplier of mobile network equipment, as a potential national security risk. Hard-liners in Donald Trump¡¯s administration are especially keen to prevent Huawei from supplying wireless carriers as they upgrade to 5G, a next-generation technology expected to accelerate the shift to Internet-connected devices and self-driving cars.
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