House of Huawei: Eva Dou of the Washington Post on Her New "Secret History" of Huawei
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2025
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, I chat with Eva Dou, technology reporter for the Washington Post, about her terrific new book about Huawei. From its prehistory to its fight for its life under tremendous U.S. pressure, she tells its story in a way that's both deeply engaging and very evenhanded.
04:53 – Meng Wanzhou’s case and its impact on media interest in Huawei
07:13 – How did Ren Zhengfei’s experiences in the PLA shape the corporate culture of Huawei?
10:21 – The impact of his father on Ren Zhengfei
13:42 – Women in Huawei’s leadership and Sun Yafang as a chairwoman
18:41 – Is Huawei a tool of the state?
23:21 – Edward Snowden’s revelations and how they influenced the perception of Huawei
26:34 – The Cisco lawsuit influence on the company’s approach to foreign markets
28:07 – Reasons for Huawei working with embargoed or sanctioned states
30:46 – Huawei’s international expansion
33:04 – Huawei’s management style and internal competition
36:33 – Meng Wenzhou’s detainment as a turning point for Huawei and China-U.S. relations
38:09 – Ren Zhengfei’s media campaign and narrative shift after the Meng affair
40:44 – Huawei’s involvement in Xinjiang’s surveillance
43:09 – Huawei’s success in shaping 5G standards despite global pushback
46:27 – The “Huawei index”: tracking Chinese investment abroad through Huawei’s market presence
48:35 – Huawei’s push into chip development amid sanctions: real progress or just hype?
52:23 – Huawei: a proxy, a leading or lagging indicator, or just a bellwether?
54:11 – Huawei’s “too big to fail” status: benefits and risks amid U.S. government pressure
56:29 – Huawei’s perspective on the backlash from sanctions
58:19 – Concluding question: about Huawei’s ownership and governance
Paying it forward: Raffaele Huang at The Wall Street Journal
Recommendations:
Eva: The Party's Interests Come First by Joseph Torigian; Yang Jie at The Wall Street Journal; Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Kaiser: Adolescence on Netflix; Kyle Chan's high-capacity.com
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. |
| 0:13.0 | In this program, we'll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends |
| 0:18.5 | that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth |
| 0:26.3 | conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you from my home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Cynica is supported |
| 0:37.1 | this year by the Center for East Asian Studies |
| 0:39.0 | at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, |
| 0:41.1 | a National Resource Center for the Study of East Asia. |
| 0:44.3 | The podcast will remain free. |
| 0:46.2 | But if you work for an organization that believes in what I'm doing with the podcast, |
| 0:49.5 | please consider lending your support. |
| 0:51.8 | You can get me at Cinecapod at gmail.com. |
| 0:54.9 | And listeners, please support my work at www.cicapodcast.com. |
| 1:00.1 | Become a subscriber and enjoy, in addition to the podcast, the complete transcript of the show, |
| 1:05.0 | essays from me as well as writings and podcasts from all sorts of your favorite China-focused |
| 1:09.5 | columnists and commentators. |
| 1:11.6 | Check out the page to see all it's on offer, and do consider helping me out. |
| 1:17.1 | When it comes to writing about the company Huawei, the challenge is pretty enormous. |
| 1:22.1 | I know this because I've written about it. |
| 1:23.7 | I mean, it was 20 years ago, but among many things that one has to try to write size, even back then, is the extent to which you talk about it as a political story. |
| 1:31.7 | As with any Chinese company above a certain size or above a certain level of significance, |
| 1:36.9 | you can't really ignore the political angle, but this is really especially so in the case |
... |
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