Scholars comment: Huaweis thirty years from bronze to king

Author: Keith Middot; Johnson, Elias Middot; Grore, Translation: Zhou Zhiping

In 2009, Teliasonra, a Swedish mobile phone giant, began to build the world's first batch of 4G wireless networks on the Scandinavian Peninsula on Scandinavia.In the choice of 4G network contractor in Oslo, Norway, Tria made a bold and unexpected decision: Huawei.At that time, Huawei did not have many business in overseas markets except for domestic and some developing countries.

However, that year, Huawei unexpectedly won a larger contract to comprehensively rebuild and update the Norwegian mobile communication network. The network was originally a leader in the global communications industry, MDASH; mdash;Mdash; MDash; built.In the end, this newborn calf from China completed the world's most ambitious network upgrade task in advance at a cost of lower budgets.

From the perspective of many wireless communications banks, this incident symbolizes the adult ceremony of Huawei and China.Huawei has no longer the same day with other Chinese companies that rely on low pricing or cottage technology to seize market share.As if suddenly, Huawei, as a company that mastered cutting -edge technology, squeezed a world in the backyard of European giants such as Ericsson and Nokia.

At that time, people realized for the first time that Huawei was not only low in price, but the key was that cost performance was competitive. The telecommunications industry analyst of Fitch Solutions, Texter Middot, said.

Time is back now.In less than ten years, Huawei, a private holding company, has developed into the world's largest telecommunications equipment dealer. The company revenue in more than 170 countries last year by more than $ 107 billion.

More importantly, all parties believe that Huawei has achieved leading in the development competition of the fifth -generation mobile communication technology (5G), and this is one of the most important technologies in the world today.Unlike previous generations of mobile communication technology, MDASH; MDASH; they only give consumers the ability to send SMS, mobile phone access, and quickly playing videos MDASH; MDASH; 5G is expected to completely subvert the global economy.

With the increasing market share and technology strength of Huawei's market share, the champion company of the Chinese government has finally gained the advantage of dominating the next generation of technology, which may be the first time in modern Chinese history.The data transmission speed brought by 5G will far exceed the existing mobile technology, which is very important for consumers, but more importantly, 5G is seamlessly operated by artificial intelligence, driving unmanned cars safely, automatic factories around the world, automatic factories around the worldThe machines can be perfectly communicated in real -time, and almost all equipment on the earth can all achieve the technical foundation of interconnection.

In short, 5G will become the central nervous system of the 21st century economy MDASH; MDASH; if Huawei continues to rise, then the most likely to dominate the world economy is China, not the United States.

Prior to this, the dominance of the world economy has always been monopolized by developed countries. Huawei's amazing level of customs clearance not only shocked the communications industry, but also deeply touched the government of Western countries.Huawei's success has made it the goal of the Trump administration.The latter warned that Huawei's increasingly prominent role in the global telecommunications network may make China be able to take the opportunity to control the global digital channels, thereby monitoring its competitors, or stealing the other party's business secrets.

The Swedish Institute of International AFFAIRS study Tim Middot; Ruleig said: Quot; 5G is becoming a geopolitical battlefield quot; in the United States and China.

This leads to a question that needs to be answered: Who does Huawei work for?Although Huawei was proud of private enterprises, Ren Zhengfei, who founded the company in 1987, was an engineering soldier of the PLA, and the army was also an important customer of the early days of Huawei.

At the end of last month, an important report released by the British 5G regulatory agency caused people to worry about Huawei as a high -tech Trojama.The conclusion of the report is that the potential defect (Underlying Defects) causes the company's software and network security systems to be hacked and there are hidden dangers of security; major quot; major quot;But even so, the report was mainly blamed on the negligence of engineering design, and no evidence showed that these vulnerabilities were implanted under the instructions of the Chinese authorities; the report was not recommended that Britain completely banned Huawei.

In fact, the Trump administration, who often alienated long -term ally, has fallen in the global action of isolation.Although allies such as Australia and Japan have undergone a ban on Huawei technology under the leadership of Washington, many other countries are still considering.Like Germany, Britain is still weighing the geopolitical influence of Huawei equipment.Thailand, South Korea and other countries have taken one step first to allow Huawei to start 5G projects.As a big country that the United States is expecting to balance China, India has rejected the United States' request to block Huawei outside the telecommunications network.

It seems that Huawei has occupied a technical high ground overnight, and there is a straightforward problem behind Western concerns: this 30 years ago did not see the name of the Chinese private enterprise with imported basic telecommunications equipment. How did it become the key technology in the world?What about the master?

Huawei's success and its technical strength in recent years cannot be explained with a single factor.The cost advantage is of course one of the factors.State support, avoiding the impact of foreign competition, and the huge local market, are conducive to Huawei's huge revenue repeatedly.In addition, Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei was a veteran, and Huawei's first client was the army. This is probably not only coincidence.

However, Huawei's rising light speed is the result of many different policies and choices. Several mistakes of Western competitors can also be regarded as assists.

It is very clear that the national support that Huawei has obtained over the years is not enjoyed by Western competitors, although the exact nature of this support is difficult to quantify.

Since Huawei is a private enterprise for employees' shareholding system, it is not obliged to announce detailed financial reports like listed companies.However, the evidence found by EU investigators shows that Huawei may have obtained a US $ 30 billion credit limit provided by the National Development Bank of China, and some other time of financing.

The German Marshall Fund's maintenance of the Alliance for Securing Democracy Chinese analyst Middot; Schrauder said: Quot; State -supported financing is critical to the development of Huawei.Quot; This helped Huawei to control the domestic market, and then enable it to expand by providing large discounts to overseas markets.

Huawei has denied direct assistance from the country.However, Ren Zhengfei admits that China's industrial policy has played a key role in the growth of Huawei.He once said that if it was not for the Chinese government to protect local companies from the fierce impact of competition from overseas in the domestic market, Quot; Huawei may not exist.quot;

Therefore, the rise of Huawei may be regarded as the latest test of the struggle between the two forms of capitalist forms: one is the open privatized Western market economy, and the other is the government supported by the government, but this consciousnessThe form is not so clear, because Huawei is not a state -owned enterprise in the formal sense.

No matter what role the Chinese government plays, Ren Zhengfei's personal vision and ambitions obviously have played a role in Huawei.In 2000, the Far East Economic Review recorded in the side writing of Huawei: Ren Zhengfei left the army at the age of 39, worked for an electronic company under the state -owned enterprise Nandou Group for four years, and then received a loan of 8.5 million US dollars from a state -owned bank.Founded Huawei with 14 colleagues.

He initially operated the telecommunications switch agency business, and the switch was a basic network technology.In 1990, Huawei began to produce switches, but he did not follow the industry's standard practices mdash; mdash; cooperated with foreign companies, but instead made great efforts to develop independent investment in internal investment.Analyst's Bull; Arronus found that Huawei's business records found that in the early 1990s, Huawei had 500 R & D personnel and 200 manufacturers. This serious production and research ratio was extremely unusual.

By 1993,Huawei launched a new switch and chose the army as customers to set up a telecommunications network for it.According to the Far East Economic Review, this contract played an important role in the process of Huawei surpassing competitors.One year later, Ren Zhengfei obtained another form of government protection.He stated to him when he was received by General Secretary Jiang Zemin that the program -controlled switch was related to the major problems of the survival and development of a country and a nation, saying that it was as important as national defense, and it was not too much.This opinion was recognized by Jiang.

By 1996, driven by Ren Zhengfei, the Chinese government changed its industrial policy to make it biased towards national telecommunications companies and blocked foreign competitors outside the door.

In the next few years, Huawei ’s firepower was fully opened, expanding the mighty nationwide, signing contracts with local governments, especially rural grassroots government departments, to sell competitors at a ultra -low price sale technology.Government agencies provide free services.By 1998, Huawei's market share had caught up with its main competitor Shanghai Bell.

While Huawei has risen in China, it also provides more discounts in the international market through competitors with more discounts.Compared with Western competitors, Huawei has a large number of engineering talents who are willing to receive lower wages, and the savings of labor costs have been discounted to customers up to 20%.According to data provided by market research company Delloro Group, Huawei now controls 29%of the global telecommunications equipment market. This number is as high as 43%in the Asia -Pacific region and 34%in Latin America.

Although Huawei also has a black history of technology plagiarism, such as the stolen Cisco router software code at the beginning of this century, experts still believe that it is because Ren Zhengfei has attached great importance to research and development since the beginning of the entrepreneurial and Iraq, and now Huawei will grow into a R & D giant.

Signals Research Group founder and industry analyst Micdot; Terland said: QUOT; I believe that Huawei now has many technical expertise because they have gathered many smart people.You can criticize Huawei, but you can't deny it.quot;

Today, Ren Zhengfei believes that as a private enterprise, Huawei can freely invest more funds for the development of MDASH; mdash; this number is about 15 billion to 20 billion US dollars per year.In Huawei, about 80,000 people are committed to R & D work, which is almost half of the company's employees; in the Huawei Enterprise Park in Shenzhen alone, there are tens of thousands of R & D personnel.

Former Chief Technical Expert of the Federal Communications Commission, Heng Ning Bull; Schotslainen said that Huawei focuses on transforming research results into market products. This ability is better than Cisco and Google.Schotslainen said that Huawei's research institution is well integrated into the development process Quot; enables Huawei to quickly transform the research results into sales.

Huawei implements a highly vertical integration.Unlike its main competitors Aili and Nokia, Huawei has designed almost all components of 5G technology, including the core technology of the Internet economy: smartphones.Huawei is the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, second only to South Korea.Experts believe that Huawei can push 5G products to the market faster by designing chipsets and mobile phones.

When building 3G and 4G networks, Huawei is still a catch -up, and it seek to obtain many technical authorization from old competitors.Titian of the Fitch Solution Company said that Huawei's approach made Ericsson and Nokia, which also followed the deer 5G technology today.Ericsson and Nokia both invested a lot of funds in the cutting -edge technology at the time, so they just thought about the maximum extrusion profit, instead of going forward in the next stage, which made them gradually fall behind in development.In addition, they felt that there was no need to worry about a threatened Chinese company.

Now, the situation has occurred.Data from the German company iPlytics that track the intellectual property format show that Huawei now has more 5G -related patents than any other company.This means that in the future, other companies to use 5G core technology will have to pay Huawei.

After mastering technical weapons, Huawei has the ability to formulate 5G development rules, which is an advantage that it cannot obtain in previous generations.

In the past few years, telecommunications engineers will meet regularly every few months to finalize the technical standards for continuous development. These standards will manage all aspects of 5G.According to the iPlytics survey, Huawei's figures can be seen everywhere at such conferences. It dispatched more engineers participating in the conference than any other telecommunications companies, and made the preferred contribution to the technical standards that are still developing.

In the process, Huawei's technical breakthroughs are unmatched by other companies.Its low -frequency band (high coverage) and high -frequency band (high speed) 5G technology have passed on -site testing.Earlier this year, Huawei released the chipset and equipment independently designed, which will make 5G a reality.Huawei said that 30 5G network construction orders have been signed around the world, and dozens of orders can be won soon.

When a large amount of data from the world MDASH; MDASH; including MDASH; MDASH, including telephone, email and commercial transactions; transmission through a network built by a Chinese company, US officials are worried that such telecommunications infrastructure may be used for spy operations.Make Chinese intelligence agencies have the opportunity to collect a large amount of communication information.

What makes the United States more worry is that China may replace the United States as the number one intelligence country in the world, and may not even give the US network access, and the network is the basis for global business exchanges and military projection.For decades, American intelligence agencies have been using the core roles of American companies in the global telecommunications network to monitor the enemy and collect important information.

Today, whether it is a plan or a coincidence, or both or both, China may have a way to reverse the disadvantages. Although the United States has a well -known Silicon Valley, it has not developed a 5G national team.On the contrary, the European Telecom Corporation has become the main network box, antenna, and beam formation equipment manufacturers through integration and mergers, and these equipment will become the pillar of 5G technology.

James Middot; Lewis, director of technical policy projects of the Centers of Strategic and International Studies (CENTER For Strategic and International Studies), said: If you are a Chinese government, you have two options: you can take the old road in the United States and spend billions of dollars to build billionsA signal intelligence network; you can also choose to fund Huawei, which is much low in doing so.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dan Middot; Kotz warned in the global threat assessment report that advanced communication networks produced by foreign production will challenge the competitiveness and data security of the United States, and as more and more American data will be in these networksFlowing, risks of foreign invasion systems and rejection of service will become higher.

For concerns in this regard, Huawei equipment has basically been disabled in the United States.In December last year, the US Department of Justice was named the name of the United States by trying to steal US technology and fraudulently fraudulently in Iran's business to order Huawei's chief financial officer and Ren Zhengfei's daughter Meng Wanzhou.She is currently trying to resist the demand for the extradition of the United States.

At the same time, the United States also madly allows Western allies to guarantee that Huawei is disabled. This is probably a defeat.Huawei is in a dominant position in the competition of the global telecommunications network construction and the formulation of 5G standards. The Trump administration finds that the United States is getting more and more isolated even between the closest allies.

Despite the continuous pressure of the United States, the European Union still has no ban on this Chinese company, and even allies such as Britain and Germany are unlikely to completely disable Huawei. These countries have not finally decided which companies to participate in the construction of them to build them.5G network.The reason is simple: many European countries have used Huawei devices, and the cost of changing horses is too high.

U.S. decision makers, especially in Germany, even warn that if Huawei allows Huawei to enter its 5G network, the United States may revoke its intelligence sharing right.

Europe is like a battlefield, and Germany is a battlefield in the battlefield, and the Fitch Solutions Company's Tilian said.

However, from many aspects, the Trump administration failed to persuade European allies to believe that Huawei would bring hidden safety hazards, and he always criticized the European leaders, making the problem even more tricky.The US government has not disclosed any evidence that Huawei equipment plays a role in Chinese spy activities, and it may not have any evidence in private.

Schurarder, the Marshall Foundation in Germany, believes that if American intelligence officials really have solid evidence to prove that Huawei helps China to carry out spy activities, they may take the initiative to make up to inform them.

With the defeat of the US siege operation, American intelligence officials have begun to prepare to face the world of Huawei led the new generation of telecommunications networks in the future.Last month, Su Bull, the chief deputy director of the National Intelligence Agency; Gordon said in his speech: In the future, we will have to find a way out in the 5G world, so that we can control the unbelievable technologies in the diversified network.risks of.You must assume that the network is dirty.

Huawei executives argued that the United States' allegations were irresponsible. Ren Zhengfei said that even if Chinese law asked Huawei to collect intelligence, he would refuse to ensure the company's independence.Chinese experts in the United States think this statement is ridiculous.

Schrauder said: In China, the larger the scale of a company, the more need to keep its business goals consistent with the party's political goals.Huawei can publicly express such a stance that does not meet the truth, and this incident itself confirms its political support.lsquo; Ordinary rsquo; If a company states that he is openly resisted, it is impossible not to be punished.

In order to meet the needs of law enforcement, the communication network is generally allowed to implant a monitoring function in a certain situation when it is built.Senior researcher of the Institute of International Computer Research Nicholas Middot; Weaver believes that if the US network uses Chinese designed equipment, it is equivalent to inviting Beijing to carry out espionage, because the network infrastructure itself supports this intervention.

Huawei US Chief Security Officer Andy Middot; Pudy pointed out in an interview with foreign policy that the American spy activity recorded by the National Security Agency, Edward Middot; Snowden led to the fundamental trust crisis of the telecommunications industry.Snowden's inside story exposed how American companies were forced to cooperate with the government to support their intelligence activities.

The United States fundamentally believes that China will use Chinese companies mdash; mdash; even private companies mdash; mdash; to engage in American companies using American companies, Pudy said.

Huawei executives even started to use Trump's US 5G to miss the United States.Earlier this year, Guo Ping, the chairman of Huawei, told reporters: (Trump) realized that the United States was behind in this area.I think his information is clear and correct.

At the same time, many experts said that the security concerns about Huawei equipment were exaggerated because almost all telecommunications equipment giants rely on Chinese factories to produce massive parts.

Leliger of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs said: At present, discussions on Huawei's security issues are a bit stupid and did not grasp the key points.We should assume that China can break the 5G network regardless of whether you use Huawei or other manufacturers.The disable Huawei itself will not provide additional security.

Based on this idea, Huawei also asked the US government to re -examine its technology.Pedi proposed: We should explore the effective risk reduction mechanism of risks, so that we have the opportunity to do business in the United States.However, the US government has not responded to this proposal.

Experts in related fields are also arguing whether Huawei is really as powerful as some US officials worry.Some telecommunications company executives who have used Huawei and other manufacturers at the same time said that Huawei is indeed leading the industry, and the basic skills in radio data transmission are particularly solid.

From a technical point of view, especially in the network of radio, we believe that Huawei has a huge advantage and leads other suppliers for several years.

It is also believed that the so -called technical advantages of Huawei may not be so prominent, and because many companies crack 5G technology puzzles in different directions, they have different areas of progress, so it is difficult to comprehensively measure technological advantages.The 5G network involves many different technical areas, and many of them are still in the stage of primary development.The special responsibility engineering team has not fully determined that the 5G standard MDASH; MDASH; that is, the technical language used by communicating and exchange data between different devices.This means that there is currently lack of scientific standards to evaluate who is in the leading position of 5G technology.

What is leading?I don't know how you define the lead, Terland of Signal Research Group said.

Earlier, mobile communication technology was upgraded from 3G to 4G, promoting technology based on application software.Streaming services providing users with high -fidelity content with high -fidels, such as YouTube and Spotify, both rely on this technology, as well as online taxi services such as Uber.The upgrade from 3G to 4G is just an evolution rather than a revolution; although 5G still relies on the existing honeycomb wireless networking technology, it has achieved breakthroughs in data transmission volume, speed and reliability.

In the future, innovation requires the significant improvement of data transmission speed and reliability. Only in this way can we usher in the next stage of the Internet revolution mentioned in the mouth of technology companies.In order to achieve autonomous driving, we need a reliable high -bandwidth connection and almost instantaneous data transmission so that we can respond to the changes in road conditions within milliseconds.Similarly, the progress of artificial intelligence and machine learning also requires a lot of data sets to operate normally.

Regardless of whether Huawei leads his peers for a year or a few months, it is still at the same level. I am afraid that these are not the key to the problem.5G technology is still under development, and related products basically wait until next year to the market; and the 5G network that really meets people's expectations may not come at least in 2025.

Leliger of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs said: Whoever formulates standards will seize higher market share.The development of Huawei in Asia, Africa and the Middle East has proven this.China is promoting China's technical standards to developing countries, he said.

In fact, as countries are scrambling to build an advanced telecommunications network, although the United States is obstructive, Huawei's status has become increasingly stable.Many Asian countries, such as Malaysia, Vietnam, and even American allies Thailand, are considering letting Huawei participate in the construction of 5G networks.The European Union and NATO allies, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Hungary, are also conducting similar considerations, and Germany and Britain are unlikely to completely ban Huawei.

In the past 200 years, China has been passively accepted by technology developed by other countries.Today, it is returning to the technical leadership in history in the most remarkable way.