The Huawei Model: The Rise of China's Technology Giant (The Geopolitics of Information)

With the rise of China’s information and communications technology (ICT) sector, a number of Chinese high-tech firms are approaching transnational stages and shifting the center of gravity in global ICT markets. In the meantime, China’s digital economy has raised the debate with regard to the nature and direction of its developmental model. This book investigates Huawei Technologies—China’s most competitive high-tech company—as a microcosm of the rise of China’s corporate power and its evolving digital economy. Yun Wen first traces Huawei’s history against the backdrop of China’s ICT development and its outward expansion in global markets. Focusing on Huawei’s research and development strategies, she then delineates Huawei’s path to its cutting-edge technology and innovation leadership. Huawei’s distinct experience in the design of its ownership structure and labor practices is also examined in the book. By examining how Huawei’s growth intertwined with the trajectory of China’s ICT development and how it responded to various forces of corporate China’s globalization, this book sheds light on distinguishing features of the “Huawei model” and the geopolitical economic implications of China’s corporate globalization. It argues that the core of China’s pathbreaking model lies in local alternatives and indigenous agencies that have the ability to insist on a self-reliant, open-minded, and innovation-oriented developmental strategy. In 2019, the United States' trade war with China expanded to blacklist the Chinese tech titan Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. The resulting attention showed the information and communications technology (ICT) firm entwined with China's political-economic transformation. But the question remained: why does Huawei matter? Yun Wen uses the Huawei story as a microcosm to understand China's evolving digital economy and the global rise of the nation's corporate power. Rejecting the idea of the transnational corporation as a static institution, she explains Huawei's formation and restructuring as a historical process replete with contradictions and complex consequences. She places Huawei within the international political economic framework to capture the dynamics of power structure and social relations underlying corporate China's globalization. As she explores the contradictions of Huawei's development, she also shows the ICT firm's complicated interactions with other political-economic forces. Comprehensive and timely, The Huawei Model offers an essential analysis of China's dynamic development of digital economy and the global technology powerhouse at its core. |List of Illustrations Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction {Introductions and conclusions don't typically have chapter numbers} Chapter 1. Huawei's Domestic Accumulation: A Path Intertwining with China's ICT Development Chapter 2. Going Global: Outward Expansion into the Global South Chapter 3. March into the Global North: Opportunity or Peril? Chapter 4. From Path-Dependent to Path-Breaking? Huawei's Technological Capability Development Chapter 5. Ownership, Management, and Labor Discipline Conclusion Notes Index|"Recommended." — Choice "With The Huawei Model , Yun Wen has written a superb book on the complex relationship between Huawei and China as well as the implications of their simultaneous rises, albeit in different roles, with regard to the information and communications technology (ICT) industry and geopolitics." — Chinese Journal of Communication "Yun Wen's book The Huawei Model provides a detailed and useful account of the evolution and global expansion of Huawei Technologies." — China Quarterly | Yun Wen is a senior economist at an economic policy research firm in Vancouver, Canada. In 2019, the United States' trade war with China expanded to blacklist the Chinese tech titan Huawei Technologies Company Limited The resulting attention showed the information and communications technology (ICT) firm entwined with China's political-economic transformation. But the question remained: why does Huawei matter? Yun Wen uses the Huawei story as a microcosm to understand China's evolving digital economy and the global rise of the nation's corporate power. Rejecting the idea of the transnational corporation as a static institution, she explains Huawei's formation and restructuring as a historical process replete with contradictions and complex consequences. She places Huawei within the international political economic framework to capture the dynamics of power structure and social relations underlying corporate China's globalization. As she explores the contradictions of Huawei's development, she also shows the ICT firm's complicated interactions with other political-economic forces. Comprehensive and timely, The Huawei Model offers an essential analysis of China's dynamic development of digital economy and the global technology powerhouse at its core Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Illustrations 8 Abbreviations 10 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 14 1. Huawei’s Domestic Accumulation: A Path Intertwining with China’s ICT Development 32 2. Going Global: Outward Expansion into the Global South 67 3. March into the Global North: Opportunity or Peril? 103 4. From Path-Dependent to Pathbreaking? Huawei’s Technological Capability Development 128 5. Ownership, Management, and Labor Discipline 156 Conclusion 190 Notes 214 Index 242 Back cover 258