Huawei Founder On US’ Charges: ‘You Can’t Crush Us’

For the first time after his daughter’s arrest, Ren Zhengfei, Huawei’s founder speaks about the pressure his company is currently facing from the U.S.

In an exclusive interview with BBC correspondent Karishma Vaswani, Ren described his daughter, Meng Wanzhou’s arrest as a political move made by the U.S. against his company. Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was held in Canada on charges of bank fraud, stealing trade secrets and money laundering.

The company has denied the accusations.

During the interview, Ren declared that "there's no way the U.S. can crush us".

Despite his acknowledgement about the significant impact due to potential losses, Huawei’s founder said its technology is to good to be banned or ignored.

"The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced. Even if they persuade more countries not to use us temporarily, we can always scale things down a bit."

In a warning made by the U.S. to its allies on using Huawei and its technology, U.S. State Secretary Mike Pompeo said Washington may have difficulty to “partner alongside with them.”

So far Canada has already started reviewing Huawei’s products for any security threats it may pose. The U.S., Australia and New Zealand have also stopped the company from supplying the materials for their 5G broadband networks.

Despite the pressure by the U.S, on Huawei, Mr. Ren seem to be unfazed.

”The world cannot leave us because we are more advanced".

"If the lights go out in the West, the East will still shine. And if the North goes dark, there is still the South. America doesn't represent the world. America only represents a portion of the world."

As one of the largest private corporation in China, Huawei has been scrutinized over concerns of spying by China’s intelligence services using the company’s technology.

These accusations were denied by Ren.

"The Chinese government has already clearly said that it won't install any backdoors. And we won't install backdoors either,” he said.

Despite his denial, Ren confirmed during the interview that his company also has a Communist party committee. One which every company in China needs to have in compliance with the country’s laws.