Ren told a group of reporters on Tuesday that he missed his daughter very much, and that he would wait to see if President Trump intervened in her case.
To
entrepreneurs in China, he is a legend akin to Steve Jobs.
To
United States officials, he is the secretive mastermind behind a
company that is extending the Chinese government’s ability to
infiltrate computer systems and data networks around the world.
But
for all his fame and power, Ren Zhengfei, the 74-year-old founder and
chief executive of the Chinese
technology giant Huawei, may no longer have the luxury of letting
his company’s success speak for itself.
In
his first public comments since United States authorities arranged
for the arrest of his daughter Meng Wanzhou, who is also Huawei’s
chief financial officer, Mr. Ren told a group of reporters on Tuesday
that he missed his daughter very much, and that he would wait to see
if President Trump intervened in her case. He called Mr. Trump a
“great president,” and said that his tax cuts had helped American
business.
Ms.
Meng was arrested in Canada last month on accusations of defrauding
banks to help Huawei’s business in Iran. Washington is seeking her
extradition, but Mr. Trump has suggested that he might intercede if
it would help China and the United States reach a deal to end their
trade war. Huawei has said that it is unaware of any wrongdoing by
Ms. Meng.
And
last week, the Polish authorities said they had arrested a Huawei
employee there on charges of spying for Beijing. The company fired
the man on Saturday.
Mr.
Ren insisted that his company had not spied for China.
“I
love my country. I support the Communist Party. But I will never do
anything to harm any country in the world,” Mr. Ren said on
Tuesday. A company spokesman confirmed his remarks.
Huawei
has 180,000 employees and has become the world’s largest maker of
telecommunications equipment. It estimates that it generated more
than $100 billion in sales last year, and it sells more smartphones
around the world than Apple. Yet Mr. Ren seldom appears in public.
When
he has spoken to the news media in the past, he has played down his
achievements, attributing Huawei’s success to its employees’ hard
work. He has said that his company has never spied for any government
— an assertion that has not eased the concerns of American
counterintelligence officials.
For
most of its existence,
Huawei was opaque to people in China, too.
It
was founded in 1987, but it did not begin publishing the names and
biographies of its board members until its 2010 annual report. Mr.
Ren spoke to the news media for the first time in 2013. The next
year, he told The Independent of London that he had no hobbies,
prompting a colleague to lean in and suggest that he enjoyed reading
and drinking tea.
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