China and the US: Access denied
In December 1997, Ren Zhengfei and his management team gathered by the fireplace in a Silicon Valley hotel to discuss their recent meetings with a clutch of US technology firms. While their American counterparts headed home for Christmas, the boss of Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker, and his team remained at work, analysing what they had seen and heard. In Mr Ren’s vision for global expansion, the US was to be the role model.
“We must respect them, learn from them, critically carry on [their work],” he concluded in an article praising companies such as IBM and Bell Labs for their innovative power, speed of movement and scale. Ever since, his company has paid up to 3 per cent of its revenue each year to consultancies including IBM, Accenture and Hay Group to model its management systems on US multinationals. “This has helped us develop a common language with customers all over the world,” says a Huawei board member.
But 14 years on, its love affair with America is on the rocks. While the lessons from Silicon Valley have helped the Chinese company storm markets in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe – and elevated it to the global number two slot – it has hit a brick wall in the US. In spite of $28bn in global revenues, $4.4bn in operating profit and a world market share of 14.2 per cent last year, it has yet to win a single network contract with a leading telecoms carrier in the US.
Huawei’s frustrated attempts to make serious inroads in the US add up to more than just a corporate saga. They reveal deepening mutual distrust between China and America. In the US, there is growing frustration and alarm in the intelligence community and in Congress at its companies’ dependence on China for critical components in highly sensitive industries. There are also concerns that US groups are placed at a disadvantage by hidden financial support from Beijing for their rivals. China, for its part, suspects that America is seeking to contain its rise on all fronts, including economic.
The extent of Huawei’s problems became apparent last year when the company tried to raise its stake in the US market, and each attempt ended in failure. In October, it appeared close to winning a multibillion-dollar network infrastructure contract from Sprint Nextel, the third-largest carrier in the US. Though the administration of Barack Obama lacked a formal mechanism to prevent the deal, such was its concern that Gary Locke, the commerce secretary since named ambassador to Beijing, telephoned Sprint’s chief executive. In the event, Sprint chose Samsung.
Last year, Huawei also lost out to Nokia Siemens Networks in a bid for Motorola’s wireless assets, and failed to win a bid for 2wire, an internet software firm that went to Pace of the UK instead. People familiar with both failures say that concerns about the risk of regulatory delays played a role in each.
Last month, Huawei was forced to agree to unwind a $2m acquisition of patents from 3Leaf, an insolvent California-based startup, after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius), which vets foreign takeovers of US assets, refused approval.
In the Sprint case, Huawei had offered external validation of its equipment through Amerilink, a company set up by William Owens, a former vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Kevin Packingham, a former Sprint executive. But US officials never believed the group had the necessary technical capability or independence, according to people familiar with the matter. Instead, the attempt to appease government concerns was perceived as a ploy.
This is in part because of the rocky state of Sino-US relations, including reports of cyberattacks on US companies such as Google in China. Fairly or unfairly, says James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, America will be loath to entrust a Chinese group with access to its communications network if it has reason to suspect doing so would bolster cyberwarfare capabilities.
“Awareness in the national security policy community of threats in the cyber domain has greatly increased,” says Mr Mancuso. “So if you believe that the Chinese government is engaging in cyber-intrusion, you’ll have a problem with Huawei because Huawei sits smack in the middle of the industry supplying the critical infrastructure.”
Huawei sees itself as a victim of a relationship poisoned by distrust and demonisation of China. Bill Plummer, spokesman for Huawei North America, reels off a list of other stress points, including currency disputes, disagreement over Tibet and Taiwan and China’s inclination to use information security and innovation policies to shut foreign companies out of the market. “We are always seen through this prism,” he complains.
In a recent letter to Mr Obama, senior Republican lawmakers warned about Beijing’s “extensive support” for Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese technology group, and that such financial ties “[increase] the risk that the companies feel obliged to follow its instructions”. Huawei acknowledges having several credit lines from state banks but acts only as a “bridge” between the banks and customers who need loans to buy its equipment, and says it has received no other significant government support.
In 2008, Huawei retracted a bid with Bain Capital for 3Com, a US technology company, after it became clear the deal would not pass Cfius scrutiny. People familiar with the Cfius process say US concerns about Huawei are based on classified information known to only a handful of officials.
US politicians have long-running complaints about transparency. As a private company, Huawei does not disclose details about its owners. Mr Ren’s history in the People’s Liberation Army has fed insinuations that the PLA could have either a stake in or special relations with Huawei. He was an officer in the engineering corps from 1974 to 1983, losing his position when the military was downsized. The company refutes the insinuations, saying Mr Ren holds no more than a 1.42 per cent stake and the rest of the company is owned by employees through a holding structure. But that has helped little to dispel doubts in the US.
Huawei also says the process of unwinding its patent deal with 3Leaf could have some benefits for its future in the US. The company has installed a compliance officer in charge of overseeing divestment to meet Cfius demands. “This gives us the chance for the first time to have a continuous dialogue with Cfius,” Mr Bross says.
Legal experts in the US stress that such dialogue is necessary to build trust with officials even when no deal is in the pipeline. But Huawei claims it was not given that chance in the past. “If you are Ericsson, you can have that. If you’re Huawei, you can’t,” says Mr Bross.
Huawei also intends to install product security mechanisms to address US criticism. It plans to replicate the “secure cell” structure it uses in the UK, whereby critical software code for network products is compiled by locals and put in escrow. That comes on top of a system where US customers can choose who they want to install Huawei products and who they want to support them.
But while it keeps lobbying the top-tier carriers, Huawei has started selling gear for rural networks in the US. Last month, it sold a rural broadband network to Northeast Wireless in Maine, and currently it is in talks with Sprint Rural Alliance, a group of small rural operators that have “roaming” partnerships with Sprint Nextel, for infrastructure in a few midwestern states.
Even in the relatively straightforward Maine transaction, however, the problems Huawei faces in the US remain constant. At a recent congressional hearing, a senator from the state asked law enforcement officials about the deal, and revealed that the FBI had discussed the transaction with Northeast Wireless. The deal was completed and did not in the end prove controversial. But it was one more sign of Huawei’s uphill struggle in America.
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