House of Huawei: The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company

4 4 out of 5 stars | 24 ratings

Price: 19.69

Last update: 02-11-2025


About this item

The untold story of the mysterious company that shook the world.

On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world’s most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the US-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the global spotlight.

In House of Huawei, Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou pieces together a remarkable portrait of Huawei’s reclusive founder, Ren Zhengfei, and how he built a sprawling corporate empire—one whose rise Western policymakers have become increasingly obsessed with halting. Based on wide-ranging interviews and painstaking archival research, House of Huawei dissects the global web of power, money, influence, surveillance, bloodshed, and national glory that Huawei helped to build—and that has also ensnared it.


Top reviews from the United States

  • James Wright
    5.0 out of 5 stars How Huawi became a global telecom powerhouse
    Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2025
    This is a story about an individual Ren Zhengfei and his dream of building a world class telecommunications industry. He started his company when China was just beginning to open up to capitalism and there were not many rules to constrain growth if one was resourceful and filled with ambition. He hired a couple of top engineers to help develop the technology, likely appropriated technology from western telecom firms and pushed his staff relentlessly. He grew up during difficult times under Mao, consequently, he realized he had to be politically astute to survive. As Huawei became more successful the Chinese government added support providing substantial funding. As the company developed it began to work throughout the world. Often working in countries that were sanctioned by the US Government. Huawei is now the largest telecommunications company in the world. Check out their campus where they have built replicates of European buildings. Impressive achievement by Ren Zhengfei and his company.
  • NJ
    4.0 out of 5 stars Just do not expect anything "secret"
    Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2025
    The book provides a solid starting point for anyone curious about the rise of Huawei. It serves as a highly accessible overview of the tech giant's journey. The author meticulously chronicles the key events that shaped its trajectory from a small reseller to a global powerhouse. The book does a commendable job of charting the company's evolution, touching upon its relationship with the Chinese government, its expansion into global markets, and the subsequent controversies that have plagued it in recent years.

    That said, the book is no "secret history," notwithstanding the subtitle. Anyone expecting a trove of previously undisclosed information may be left wanting. The book almost entirely relies on publicly available sources and previously reported details, meaning much of the content will be familiar to those who have followed Huawei's story through media coverage. The narrative stitches together these known facts cohesively, offering a comprehensive timeline but not significantly expanding the understanding of the company's inner workings.

    Another area where the book falls short is its limited exploration of the products that fueled Huawei's phenomenal growth. There's a notable absence of detailed analysis of the technological innovations or strategic product decisions that propelled the company to the forefront of the telecommunications industry. No firsthand accounts from employees or former employees could have provided a different perspective on the company's culture and operations.

    Despite these limitations, the book is a good one-stop place for anyone who wants to learn about this most enigmatic of the global giants.
  • Qingping Dou
    1.0 out of 5 stars Laced with disinformation about China, a book fit for propaganda
    Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2025
    A largely biographical work on Huawei’s founder and the company, this book nevertheless misleads readers through dark painting Chinese government, distorting reality and repeating lies that play right into the on-going US-led anti-China movement.

    The misleading manifests in three areas:

    1) Rehashing the already debunked Xinjiang human right issue. Anyone who wants to know the truth about Xinjiang will benefit by listening to the public speech by the U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to the former Secretary of State Colin Powell. In the speech made in August 2018 at the Ron Paul Institute, Colonel Wilkerson clearly stated that one of the major reasons the U.S. kept its presence in Afghanistan that cost the U.S. tax payers more than $300 million a day was because “there are 20 million Uygurs” in Xinjiang and “The CIA would want to destabilize China and that would be the best way to do it to foment unrest and join with those Uygurs in pushing the Han Chinese in Beijing from internal places rather than external…”

    It is sad that this author continues to spread various debunked lies about Xinjiang, disregarding the most important piece of the Xinjiang puzzle --- it’s the U.S. CIA together with some terrorist groups that created the Xinjiang unrest, and disregarding the fact that the United Nations voting result for the Xinjiang issue shows that a decidedly majority of countries (including All the Muslim majority countries) voted to support China’s Xinjiang policy.

    Xinjiang had been an integral part of China since at least in the 1800s. Geographically it lies on China’s northwestern border to eight different countries which understandably calls for more national security measures just like the U.S. has extensive surveillance systems along its own borders. In the past couple of decades, the Chinese people including Uygur Chinese have enjoyed unprecedented economic growth and overall prosperity because of the safety protection by their government. Anyone who has been in China knows that China has been one of the safest places in the world to live and to raise a family due to in a large part its crime-deterring safety measures such as surveillance cameras. What has been a good use of technology for the benefit of the Chinese people was cast in a dark shade by the author.

    2) Villainizing Chinese leaders. This author’s method of foreshadowing to make Chinese leaders look like the bad guys reads like comic books. When the reader first encounters the former Chinese Premier Li Peng in the book, the author prepares the reader with the description: a so called “hard-liner nicknamed ‘the Butcher of Beijing’”--- in case the reader would mistaken him as a good guy (how could a Chinese communist leader be a good guy?).

    To keep the current Chinese leader Xi Jinping shrouded in darkness, the author portrayed his signature anti-corruption campaigns that have been welcomed and supported by the Chinese people as “providing cover for Xi to take down potential rivals.” Anyone who has a bit of knowledge of contemporary Chinese history knows that anti-corruption has been one of the cornerstones for the PRC’s establishment and its effectiveness has directly linked to the happiness of Chinese people. Why then the author wants to darken Chinese leader’s responsiveness to the need and happiness of the Chinese people? The answer might lie in the next area.

    3) After repeating debunked lies about Xinjiang, the author purposely compared Huawei’s role in Xinjiang to that of IBM’s technical help to the Nazis. The author also selectively cited how a Huawei officer was grilled by the UK’s chair of the Defense Select Committee, again comparing “Chinese one-party state” to the “Nazi Germany”, attempting to draw the false conclusion: the CCP = Nazis. This comparison is not only anti-logic it is preposterous! For one thing, the Chinese chose their own form of government according to their own criteria and not for catering to the taste of the westerners who chose their own government which the Chinese has never meddled with. For another, of all the incessant flaunting of the magic word “Democracy”, Hitler achieved his power by using the very democratic process. While the Chinese government takes good care of all its ethnic minorities (all 55 of them!), Hitler tried to wipe the Jews out, and while China has never invaded another country, Hitler invaded over twenty countries from 1938 to 1945 and the Nazi leader used America’s westward expansion (through murdering the natives, stealing their land, among other things) as a model for his global expansion!

    By now it seems like whatever the Chinese government has done in response to its own people’s needs and happiness got vilified by the author. Is it because the Chinese are not the same as the Americans and have not been a puppet or a clone of the latter? The fact is that the Chinese people are enjoying the economic prosperity and vibrant social life and culture enrichment that have not been seen in two centuries, all in the safe environment provided by their government. China has been setting a good example of a responsible global citizen in the world. China has also been a good example of how a country’s real power does not come from invading or meddling with other countries but from investing in its own people and through collaborations with other countries to achieve prosperity together.

    The least the American people and people of the world need is being fed disinformation such as those presented in this book that promotes misunderstanding and bias toward China and the Chinese people.

    • Best Sellers in

     
     

    Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 6,370
    17.72
     
     

    A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 23,298
    17.72
     
     

    The Woman Who Fooled the World

    3.1 3.1 out of 5 stars 2
    7.49
     
     

    Remember, You Are a Wiley

    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 66
    19.1
     
     

    Memorial Days: A Memoir

    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 338
    13.78
     
     

    The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy

    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 125
    13.12
     
     

    The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir

    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 9,730
    14.99
     
     

    The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)

    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,198
    17.5