By John Foley of Reuters Breakingviews
How scary is Huawei? The Chinese telecom equipment maker has met resistance from politicians who fear it could be used as a Trojan horse by the Chinese government. Most recently, a group of UK parliamentarians complained the company had supplied critical infrastructure without ministers’ knowledge; American and Australian politicians have already blocked Huawei from key contracts. The political tribulations will take years to resolve, but there are ways to dial down the fear.
It’s not that Huawei’s growth has suffered. The company’s revenue has increased by 12 percent a year on average since 2008, and two-thirds of it comes from outside China. Still, the United States represents just 15 percent of the group’s total sales, despite representing a market with $1.1 trillion of telecom spending in 2012, according to the Telecoms Industry Association. Moreover, since America sets the tone for global technology, Huawei-phobia could filter down to businesses and governments in other countries.
The main reason for that phobia is China. While Huawei says it has no links to the military, China’s government is particularly untransparent and powerful. Even the big banks on which China’s large companies depend for financing are state-owned, and it’s unthinkable that a company as big as Huawei could resist an order from the Communist Party. Equally, foreign governments would struggle to access data stored in the company’s mainland headquarters. So some disquiet is justified - though the same should apply to any Chinese company with access to important data.
Networks, too, are by their nature, vulnerable. The risks from “back doors” through which data can be plucked out remain theoretical. But the burden of proof is on the supplier. No system is perfectly secure, so companies and governments can only work on reducing the probability of an incursion. Avoiding a foreign supplier whose home country is known for international cyber-espionage has some logic.
True, China isn’t alone: Witness the furore over U.S. government requests for user data from some of the country’s biggest internet companies. But if America can strong-arm companies into handing over data, so can China. If companies put more and more financial value on security overall, it is likely to erode the advantage Huawei gets from being cheaper than its rivals.
Huawei can’t do much about its Chinese origins, or broader concerns about network security. Corporate governance, however, is an area where it could use a major upgrade. While a third of its employees and two-thirds of its revenue are outside the People’s Republic, all 45 of the people who staff Huawei’s top committees, as listed in its latest annual report, are Chinese. Every one of them has served at the company for more than 12 years.
Power is concentrated too: The 98 percent of shares owned by employees - again, all Chinese - are treated as a single block, which gives founder Ren Zhengfei’s separate 1.2 percent stake disproportionate significance. Popping a couple of big-name foreign tech heavyweights on the Chinese board and giving foreign employees a stake would go a long way in combating perceptions that Huawei is fuelled by patriotism as much as profit.
Familiarity would also help. Seven years ago, products made by Lenovo - which bought IBM’s laptop computer business - were barred for use on the U.S. State Department’s more sensitive networks. But since consumers and businesses were already hooked on its products, and large U.S. suppliers had an interest in seeing Lenovo succeed, the fear subsided. Foreign consumers aren’t yet fighting Huawei’s corner. For every one of the 32 million smartphones it shipped in 2012, Korean rival Samsung shipped seven.
The company could do worse than look to tiny rival Xiaomi for ideas. The Chinese handset maker has come from nowhere to become one of the country’s hottest domestic smartphone brands, mostly by creating attractive cheap handsets and upgrading its own operating system every week to please technology buffs. That shows Apple and Samsung don’t have a monopoly on consumer tastes. There’s no reason Huawei, which spends a 10th of its revenue on research and has huge economies of scale, shouldn’t be able to compete.
None of this is a quick fix. Huawei lacks the end-user marketing mentality that Samsung and Apple have cultivated over decades. Changing the company’s governance structure - perhaps even listing in New York or Hong Kong - might win friends overseas, but lose them at home. And ultimately, the extent of the company’s success outside China will be determined by politicians. But if top-level relations improve, Huawei will find that self-help now pays dividends later.
对抗“华为恐惧症”
作者：赋理，路透Breakingviews
华为到底有多可怕？这家中国电信设备生产商面临着来自外国政界的阻力，它们担心华为可能成为中国政府手中的“特洛伊木马”。最近，一些英国国会议员称，华为在部长们不知情的情况下为英国供应了关键网络基础设施；美国和澳大利亚的政客们则已经将华为挡在重要合同之外。这种政治纷争可能需要数年时间方能解决，但华为可以采取一些措施来缓解外国政界对其的忧虑。
这种来自外界的忧虑目前尚未对华为的发展产生多大影响。自2008年以来，华为的营收平均每年增长12%，且三分之二来自海外。但华为在美国的销售仅占公司总销售额的15%，而美国电信行业协会的数据显示，美国2012年的电信支出高达1.1万亿美元。此外，由于美国是全球科技业的基调奠定者，所以“华为恐惧症”可能会蔓延至其他国家的企业和政府。
这种恐惧症的主要根源在于中国。虽然华为表示自己没有军方背景，但中国政府的透明度很低而权力又极大。鉴于中国大型企业进行融资所依赖的主要银行均为国有，很难想象华为这样的大公司能拒绝执行中国执政党的命令。同样，外国政府将难以访问华为在中国大陆总部存储的数据。所以，某些忧虑是有一定道理的——但这不应只针对华为，而是应针对能够接触到重要数据的所有中国公司。
另一方面，网络本质上就是脆弱的。虽然“网络后门”可能导致数据被泄露的风险仍然只存在于理论上，但供应商负有举证责任证明其系统的安全性能。没有系统是绝对安全的，企业和政府能做的仅仅是降低被入侵的可能性。由此来看，拒绝一家来自有“国际网络间谍活动”名声的国家的供应商，似是有一定逻辑。
事实上，这一称号也不光是中国独有：当下由于美国政府被指要求该国一众互联网巨头提供用户数据所引发的强烈不满，就是最好的证明。但是，如果美国可以强制要求公司提供数据，中国自然也可以这么做。如果公司总体上认为安全问题比省钱更重要，那么华为凭借其比竞争对手便宜而建立起来的优势就会被削弱。
华为可能无法改变其中国血统，或是改变外界对于其网络安全性的普遍忧虑。但它可以将公司治理作为一个重大的改进方向。华为虽然有三分之一的员工位于海外，且三分之二的营收源自海外，但公司在最新年报中所列的45名高层委员会成员全都是中国人，每个人在公司的服务年限都超过12年。
华为的权力也十分集中：公司98%的股份由员工持有，这些员工全都是中国人，且这批股份被视为一个整体，从而使得公司创始人任正非单独持有的1.2%的股份具有不成比例的重要性。如果华为能邀请外国科技界的一两位重量级人物加入公司董事会，并向外国员工发放股份，将大大有助于改变外界对于华为的爱国主义不亚于利润驱动的看法。
品牌熟悉度也将起到帮助作用。七年前，美国国务院禁止在较敏感的网络中使用收购了IBM笔记本电脑业务的联想公司的产品。但由于消费者和公司青睐联想的产品，并且美国大型供应商也有意看到联想成功，这种忧虑渐渐消散。目前，外国消费者还没有表现出对华为产品的拥护。2012年，华为的智能手机出货量是3200万部，而韩国竞争对手三星的智能手机出货量是华为的七倍。
华为不妨向其竞争对手小米学习。小米通过生产价格低廉的手机，以及每周升级操作系统以取悦科技发烧友，从籍籍无名的中国手机生产商，一跃成为中国最受欢迎的国产智能手机品牌之一。这表明，苹果和三星对消费者品味并无垄断性。鉴于华为将营收的十分之一用于研发，并且拥有庞大的经济规模，其没有理由无法与竞争对手抗衡。
但上述这些方法都不是立竿见影的。华为缺少三星和苹果花了数十年时间发展起来的终端用户营销理念。改变公司的治理结构，甚至在纽约或香港上市，可能有助于为华为赢得海外青睐，但却可能丧失国内的伙伴。华为在海外市场的成功最终将取决于外国政界的态度。不过如果政府高层的关系有所改善，华为将发现其现在采取的自救措施将在未来带来回报。
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