Wandering China

What the Chinese are reading: Huawei a victim of its success

China’s symbols used to be the Great Wall and panda bears. But now, a most atypical corporation has found itself, much against its will, become a national symbol attracting trade war bullets from the outside world. China Daily, May 25, 2013

Emotive headline bias is a recurring theme in state media when expressing top-down thoughts on international relations.

That aside, it is with much doubt this leading exemplar of the China Dream – the world’s biggest telecomms equipment maker, will get deflated so easily. Not so when its wellbeing resonates so strongly within its military and wider populace. Intelligence gathering is important for any country concerned for its well-being today. It is the information age after all. Denying it happens at some level or another paints some sort of TV series chock full of propaganda.

In a sense, fledgling Beijing Consensus reaches its first international semiotic stumbling block with this one. Another way to look at it - Brand China and the idea of the Chinese century hits a first real challenge  as a result. However, the resulting connotative binary might become a useful part of the Chinese public diplomacy toolbox. It is questionable if Huawei would ascend the semiotic consensus of the Great Wall and panda bears but for now – the Chinese finally have a powerful symbol that could be nationalised. It’s not like they’ve not had powerful symbols before, but this is one for rising China charging ahead to rebuild its place in the world. Perhaps the solution could be an equally atypical one to others, but unsurprising to the Chinese – back it from the top all the way, give it a mandate and galvanize the numbers.

Just as negatively as China’s trade subsidies of its foreign trade feelers are perceived by some – the state is simply doing what is a quintessentially Chinese thing –   a strategy with a view for the long run. In any case, we are in a time of the global village, foreign trade is necessary for the lifeblood of that system to flow. Why stop the cross-pollination?

In 2010, the company announced 182.5 billion yuan in total revenue, of which around 120 billion yuan was from overseas.

In 2011, as its revenue rose to 203.9 billion yuan, 138 billion yuan was from overseas.  China Daily, May 25, 2013

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Huawei a victim of its success
By Li Jiabao and Shen Jingting
Source – China Daily, published May 25, 2013

The booth of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd at the 8th China (Nanjing) International Software Product & Information Service Expo in Jiangsu province on Sept 6. Huawei, as a privately held but highly globalized company, has generated most of its sales from the world market. [Photo / China Daily]

China’s symbols used to be the Great Wall and panda bears. But now, a most atypical corporation has found itself, much against its will, become a national symbol attracting trade war bullets from the outside world.

It is Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the Chinese information and communications technology solution provider.

Huawei was one of the earliest Chinese companies to seek globalization and has depended on markets outside the Chinese mainland for the larger part of its business revenue – more than 60 percent in recent years.

But precisely because it is more active and more well known abroad, it has often become the focus of other countries’ trade remedy measures against China. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Apple, Beijing Consensus, Charm Offensive, China Dream, Chinese Model, Collectivism, Communications, Culture, Domestic Growth, Economics, Finance, Government & Policy, Ideology, Influence, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, International Relations, Internet, Mapping Feelings, Media, military, Nationalism, New Leadership, Peaceful Development, Politics, Social, Soft Power, Strategy, Tao Guang Yang Hui (韬光养晦), The Chinese Identity, The construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese identities, Trade, U.S.