Author: Raymond Zhong / Source: New York Times
Vincent Yu/Associated Press
BEIJING — To entrepreneurs in China, he is a legend akin to Steve Jobs.
To United States officials, he is the secretive mastermind behind a company that is extending the Chinese government’s ability to infiltrate computer systems and data networks around the world.
But for all his fame and power, Ren Zhengfei, the 74-year-old founder and chief executive of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, may no longer have the luxury of letting his company’s success speak for itself.
In his first public comments since United States authorities arranged for the arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, who is also Huawei’s chief financial officer, Mr. Ren told a group of reporters on Tuesday that he missed his daughter very much, and that he would wait to see if President Trump intervened in her case. He called Mr. Trump a “great president,” and said that his tax cuts had helped American business.
Ms. Meng was arrested in Canada last month on accusations of defrauding banks to help Huawei’s business in Iran. Washington is seeking her extradition, but Mr. Trump has suggested that he might intercede if it would help China and the United States reach a deal to end their trade war. Huawei has said that it is unaware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng.
And last week, the Polish authorities said they had arrested a Huawei employee there on charges of spying for Beijing. The company fired the man on Saturday.
Mr. Ren insisted that his company had not spied for China.
“I love my country. I support the Communist Party. But I will never do anything to harm any country in the world,” Mr. Ren said on Tuesday. A company spokesman confirmed his remarks.
Huawei has 180,000 employees and has become the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment. It estimates that it generated more than $100 billion in sales last year, and it sells more smartphones around the world than Apple. Yet Mr. Ren seldom appears in public.
When he has spoken to the news media in the past, he has played down his achievements, attributing Huawei’s success to its employees’ hard work. He has said that his company has never spied for any government — an assertion that has not eased the concerns of American counterintelligence officials.
For most of its existence, Huawei was opaque to people in China, too.
It was founded in 1987, but it did not begin publishing the names and biographies of its board members until its 2010 annual report. Mr….
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