Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei.(Bloomberg)
It can be said that the harsh winter from 2018 to the present started with Ren Zhengfei’s Huawei, but it will never end with Huawei’s recovery. It is precisely because we have realized that the ZTE and Huawei incident is not an isolated case, but that the United States has a purpose, a plan,At the beginning of the step-by-step comprehensive containment policy against China, the Chinese side has begun to plan corresponding countermeasures and deploy specific measures based on bottom-line thinking.
The winter of 2018 was unusual for both Ren Zhengfei and Huawei.First, my beloved daughter Meng Wanzhou was described by the old Beijing dialect as: being detained by a country that cannot be reached, and then many countries rejected Huawei's 5G. As a last resort, Ren Zhengfei came forward to discuss Huawei's current situation and future, as well as Meng Wanzhou's related matters, etc.made a speech.Combined with Ren Zhengfei's speech, I took a look at Huawei's winter in his speech many years ago.
I think that if Ren Zhengfei’s low profile is due to Huawei’s innovation and his worries about the uncertainty of innovation, he is trembling and treading on eggshells. However, his daughter’s fate and his outlook on Huawei’s future development have nothing to do with his ill-fated life experience andThe hardships I experienced later, combined with the above speeches, in fact, I think that Ren Zhengfei may be a practitioner of Chinese traditional culture and a foresighted entrepreneur.
It was still in 2000, when the Internet was booming. China’s three major Internet giants at that time: Sina, Sohu and Netease became popular all over China by burning money. Ren Zhengfei’s Huawei also had sales in 2000. It has already exceeded 280100 million yuan (about 5.6 billion yuan), which should have been celebrated, but Ren Zhengfei wrote an article about Huawei’s winter, and now BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) is popular, and TMD (Today’s Toutiao, Meituan, Didi) is following suit, as Huawei, which has long been the sum of the output value and profit of the above-mentioned enterprises, still maintains its strength. The ballet feet that were distributed after Meng Wanzhou was released still made a footnote for her being handcuffed and anklet.
In 2015, Huawei launched a global campaign in which Ren Zhengfei handpicked photography of ballerina feet to represent the company.In the picture, one foot is elegantly dressed in dancing shoes, while the other foot next to it is naked and scarred, which is a bit shocking.This contrasting and impactful picture is the photographic work of American photography artist Henry Leutwyler.Huawei uses it as an advertising image, and the slogan is: Our life is painful and happy.
Ren Zhengfei once said in a speech at the Davos Forum: In addition to drinking less coffee than others and doing more work, we actually have no advantages over others.It is because we started too late, our growth period is too short, and we have accumulated too little things, so we have to suffer a little more than others.So we have a ballet foot, a bad foot. I think it is a Huawei person, who is in pain and happy. Huawei is such a bad foot, which explains how we go to the world.
Although whether the injured foot can explain Huawei's current situation is a matter of opinion, combined with Ren Zhengfei's many years of Huawei's winter, I think this is a prescient statement, full of philosophical speculation and foreseeing the future, and with a sense of crisis.
As early as August 2014, then-U.S. President Obama accused China of free-riding, which was actually public opinion preparation for China's imminent attack. However, Beijing still received Obama, who paid a state visit to China, from November 10 to 12 of that year.However, in the face of the global mergers and acquisitions of Chinese companies and the "Made in China 2025" introduced in 2016, the United States is doing its best to suppress it.
In the Trump era, this momentum has only increased. After Trump’s visit to China from November 8 to 10, 2017, he ignored the 34 cooperation projects signed in Beijing, with the total amount reaching US$253.5 billion.It set a record in the history of Sino-US economic and trade cooperation, and also set a new record in the history of world economic and trade cooperation. Shortly after returning to the United States, in February 2018, the Trump administration announced a 109.95% levy on cast iron sewage pipe fittings imported from China.anti-dumping duties.Since then, the trade dispute has gradually escalated and escalated into a trade war, which continues to this day.
On August 23, 2018, Trump said: When I took office, we were moving in the direction of allowing China to surpass the United States in a very short period of time.But that situation will not happen again, and it will start to suppress China comprehensively and spare no effort.
While carrying out the trade war, it has also extended its tentacles to restrict and even imprison corporate behavior. First, it restricted ZTE, and this time it suppressed Huawei.It can be said that the harsh winter from 2018 to the present started with Ren Zhengfei's Huawei, but it will never end with Huawei's recovery.It is precisely because we have realized that the ZTE and Huawei incidents are not isolated cases, but the beginning of a comprehensive containment policy implemented by the United States in a purposeful, planned and step-by-step manner against China. China has begun to plan corresponding countermeasures based on bottom-line thinking.and deploy specific measures.
On January 21, a special seminar for leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial levels of the Communist Party of China on adhering to bottom-line thinking and focusing on preventing and defusing major risks was held at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.The core of China's leadership, that is, all seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee were present, including members of the Politburo, members of the Secretariat, members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of China, State Councilor, President of the Supreme People's Court, Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate,Vice-chairmen of the CPPCC National Committee members and members of the Central Military Commission all attended.According to the author's observation, in addition to the above-mentioned high-profile meetings, almost all major party members and administrative heads of ministries, commissions, and localities attended in Beijing. The size of the opening class of the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China was comparable to the 7,000-person conference that year.
If we say that the Seven Thousand People Conference that year was an enlarged work conference held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Beijing from January 11 to February 7, 1962, it was attended by the Central Committee, the then Central Bureau, provinces, prefectures, and counties (Including important factories and mines) five-level leading cadres, a total of 7,118 people, initially summarized the experiences and lessons of the Great Leap Forward. It was also a summary and reflection meeting. It was a review and prevention of internal risks. So, this seminar focused onThe early warning mobilization for the upcoming external risks may be a collective warning to the coming winter of China's external environment.
At this conference, a comprehensive elaboration was given on the need to be wary of both black swans and gray rhinos, and how to prevent and resolve problems encountered in the fields of politics, ideology, economy, science and technology, society, external environment, and the construction of the Communist Party of China.The major risks encountered have been analyzed and requirements have been put forward, and it is required to adhere to the bottom line thinking, enhance the awareness of urgency, and improve the ability of prevention and control.At the same time, he believes that the world's major changes are accelerating and profound, the sources of global turmoil and risk points are increasing, and China's external environment is complex and severe.He particularly emphasized the need to strengthen the protection of overseas interests and ensure the safety of major overseas projects and personnel institutions.This is undoubtedly a profound review of the ZTE and Huawei incidents and a warning from decision-makers.
Ren Zhengfei wrote in his article Huawei's Winter: Our company's peace time was too long, and too many officials were promoted during peacetime. This is our disaster.By extension, since the CCP entered a new era, some people born in the 1970s and 1980s have successively entered leadership positions at the provincial, ministerial and prefectural level, or key positions in a company. However, due to the lack of systematic thinking and bottom-line thinking,No matter in terms of external and internal work, they are often unable to do what they want, or even stretched.From the tipping point of the ZTE incident, we can actually see how a company’s behavior evolved into a full-scale confrontation between countries.
Winter can come and be colder and colder.we are too youngAfter ten years of smooth development, our company has never experienced setbacks. Without setbacks, we would not know how to move towards the right path....Suffering is a fortune, and we have not experienced it, which is our greatest weakness....… Without foresight and prevention, you will freeze to death.At that time, whoever had cotton-padded clothes survived.
This is Ren Zhengfei’s warning during Huawei’s winter. It applies not only to the current Huawei, but also to Chinese companies that are expanding their markets overseas, especially those participating in the Belt and Road project; combined with the January 5, 2018At a meeting, Wei Zheng, quoting Zhenguan politicians, advised Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty to be aware of dangers: Being prepared for unexpected events is the way of the country.On the other hand, today, the CCP once again used the form of a meeting of 7,000 people to warn the current CCP rulers that perhaps Mao Zedong’s poems could better represent the current situation and the state of mind of Ren Zhengfei and others: the red flag rolls up the serf halberd, and the black hand hangs the overlordWhip; for the sake of sacrifice, I dare to teach the sun and the moon to change the sky!
(The author is a senior Chinese media person)
