Ren Zhengfei, the Huawei founder, recently gave an interview where he talked about the threats that his company is facing following the addition of it to U.S. trade blacklist. During the interview, Ren Zhengfei said that he would not support an Apple boycott as retaliation for bans that are being imposed against his company.
While Zhengfei stated that the probability of a boycott happening was quite low, he did say that if it happened; he would protest against it. He says, ‘That will not happen, first of all. And second of all, if that happens, I’ll be the first to protest. Apple is my teacher; it’s in the lead. As a student, why go against my teacher? Never!’
Huawei has been accused of stealing technology from mobile providers, including Apple in the past. Zhengfei has strongly denied these allegations and said, ‘I stole the American technologies from tomorrow. The U.S. doesn’t even have those technologies. We are ahead of the U.S. If we were behind, there would be no need for Trump to attack us strenuously.’
The billionaire has also addressed the rumors that the U.S. ban will be disrupting the rollout of 5G. He says that his company is more than capable of coming up with solutions despite the bans. There are reports of Huawei working on its own chips and even developing its own O.S. However; the pressing question is how quickly the company can ramp up the production. This is a question that Zhengfei was not able to answer clearly. He said, ‘That depends on how fast our repairmen are able to fix the plane. No matter what materials they use, be it metal, cloth, or paper, the aim is to keep the plane in the sky.’
We are impressed by the resilience that Ren Zhengfei and his company have shown during these trying times. The Huawei founder also said, ‘We have made some really good chips. Being able to grow in the toughest battle environment, that just reflects how great we are.’