Subscribe
E-Paper
 |
| Ren Zhengfei, founder and president of Huawei / Courtesy of Huawei Korea |
By Baek Byung-yeul
While the United States has kept up pressure on Huawei Technologies, claiming that the Chinese tech firm has provided confidential information to the Chinese government, the founder of the firm denied such claims and vowed to overcome pressures from the U.S.
"The charges made against us are not a verdict. They are only the first steps in a legal process. We can resolve these issues through legal proceedings. Let the courts decide," said Ren Zhengfei, founder and president of Huawei, during his recent interview with the U.S. broadcasting company CBS.
While the U.S. government has been lobbying its allies to block the use of Huawei's fifth-generation (5G) network equipment, Ren added the series of actions made by high-ranking officials of the U.S. only helped the firm raise its global profile.
"Before this, no one really knew what 5G was for. Now the entire world knows about 5G, and when they look into it more closely, they realize that Huawei does 5G the best," said Ren.
Mike Pence, vice president of the U.S. recently said at the Munich Security Conference that "we cannot ensure the defense of the West if our allies grow dependent on the East." The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also warned allied countries that it would be harder for the U.S. to partner with countries that didn't distance themselves from Huawei.
Despite such pressure and all the sustained allegations, Ren said he is looking for a silver lining.
The founder added Huawei has been seeing more contracts for its equipment and consumer products in the world including the European markets, saying "the sales of Huawei's consumer products rose by 68 percent in January 2019."
He said he is confident that this is in fact not a big crisis for Huawei with minimal impact on the company's bottom line.
"Many of our customers have been working with us for over two decades. They make their own decisions, and they won't decide to buy something or not just because someone else told them to," he said.
Speaking of allegations that Huawei installed backdoors in its equipment to provide information to the Chinese government, Ren refuted the allegations.
"We absolutely have not and will never do anything like that. The Chinese government has made itself clear, and I have made myself clear. Our message is the same. There are no backdoors. Over the past 30 years, Huawei has never shared data with the Chinese government and we don't intend to start any time soon," said Ren.
