House of Huawei: The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company

nonfiction - history of the biggest telecom company in China and the founder's family history through the Mao's purges, the opening of trade with outside countries and up to current day; the research into such a secretive company and reclusive family would not have been easy, so definite props to the author for that.

Unless you have a hyper-keen interest, you'll likely find most of this book readable but very dull. It does pick up halfway through (ch. 15) in the pre-2008 Olympics prep and the tightening of telecom surveillance as Internet use expanded, but then it gets a bit bogged down again with lots of dry, if important, details.

tldr: telecom equipment from any country carries a real risk of government surveillance, and China very show more much likely does this *at least* as much as the NSA does, which is not insignificant. Paired with current economic and political tensions between the US and China, it makes sense to be cautious around the use of these and emerging technologies--simply asking to inspect programming code isn't necessarily effective because it's difficult to say what is a bug and what is a purposeful secret feature. Huawei is also involved in stealing patented tech in its long history, and has provided Iran, North Korea, etc., and its own government with the tech to surveil and gather intelligence (though other companies from other countries including the US have certainly made some very questionable deals over the years as well), plus Huawei's unique organization of management is purposefully vague and non-transparent. show less

House of Huawei by Eva Dou. Huawei is a Chinese company deeply immersed in the cutting edge of 5G technology, perhaps he most dominant company in this catagory. This book gives a very solid account of the founding and ownership of the company by Ren Zhengfei. As it is a telecommunications company, one has to assume it is, if not outright owned by the Chinese State, extremely influenced by the Party. The company came into a broader view when its CEO was detained by Canadian authorities in 2018. This book details the history of the company and its founder, but it seems to skip over revealing hard facts and biting details of the later years which would be the driving influence for someone reading this now.
Here is an example of a hard show more working journalist attempting to delve behind the Red Wall with little to no luck in attaining an informational foothold. I was hoping for great revelations, instead I got a very detailed look at a well-known company that should be in the forefront of every American’s thoughts when dealing with emerging tech and those who control them.
It is a good place to begin your study of what and how the Chinese State controls, well, just about everything there.
It will be interesting to see how the current administration handles this entity in future days. Hopefully it will be done in a manner better suited than the current on again, off again dealing with Tik Tok. show less

400 pages, easy font, good spacing - but no footnotes! You have to download the 60 pages of notes from houseofhuawei.com/endnotes This is cumbersome, but useful not to have to transcribe or googlpic the detailed URLs. The notes repay a survey, with some excellent video links as when the Turkish professor of polar coding gets a golden award from Mr Ren. Not a great index, missing the incident where Huawei equipment at the African Union headquarters was detected communicating with China every night, without anyone being aware, including Huawei. This went on for seven years after China gifted the building (constructed on top of a notorious Ethiopian prison, to the AU. Great read, though.