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Who Owns Huawei?

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81–90 of 334 posts

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#81

The most informative comment I’ve heard about Chinese business is that one needs to take the western conception of state / military / corporation and chuck them out the window. In essence these are all descriptive functions of the same entity in China, and any apparent separation is just that—apparent. I know some may reply that, for example, Lockheed effectively lives at this nexus also. It’s a good argument, and pr…

I think this is a perfectly reasonable analogy. It’s not controversial to say that defence contractors in the US operate at the behest of the US government. The government uses national security to control their IP and dictate who they’re allowed to do business with, ensuring that their commercial activity is aligned with policy objectives. The Chinese government effectively has that level of control over their entir…

Right, except that you don't go to prison if you're running Northrop Grumman and refuse to bid on a project. But I agree that enough cash effectively guarantees they will.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#82

The most informative comment I’ve heard about Chinese business is that one needs to take the western conception of state / military / corporation and chuck them out the window. In essence these are all descriptive functions of the same entity in China, and any apparent separation is just that—apparent. I know some may reply that, for example, Lockheed effectively lives at this nexus also. It’s a good argument, and pr…

Market performance is not the real driver of the company’s decisions.

Every company has different stakeholders, who have different interests. The German state of lower saxony has a 20% stake in VW. That doesn't mean that VW does not compete with other car makers.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#83

The most informative comment I’ve heard about Chinese business is that one needs to take the western conception of state / military / corporation and chuck them out the window. In essence these are all descriptive functions of the same entity in China, and any apparent separation is just that—apparent. I know some may reply that, for example, Lockheed effectively lives at this nexus also. It’s a good argument, and pr…

Yes.. there's actually a board inside Huawei of state communist officials which Huawei refuses to divulge what decisions they are in charge of and how much control they have. They say it's a non-issue because all large chinese companies have such a board.

I learned this from Huawei's answer to the House Intel Committee in 2012. That committee produced a report which began Huawei's problems operating in the US: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rm226yb7473/Huawei-ZT...

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, owning some of Western popular culture is a decent geopolitical chip. Tencent is co-producing the Top Gun sequel, and Maverick's jacket no longer has either the Japanese or Taiwanese flags on the back: * https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a28479683/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun:_Maverick > Maybe it’s not as great as a nuke, but China can use popular video games to raise the next generatio…

Which part of China is not a totalitarian state?

I think that it should have read something like:

K-pop is increasing South Korea's power worldwide, although it might not be a fair comparison since SK is not a totalitarian state like China. If people get too friendly with China we will eventually be reminded of China's bad track record with human rights.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia, according to famed Russian dissident Garry Kasparov, operates this way more as a mafia syndicate. Corruption allows the “oligarchs” to enrich themselves with the nation’s mineral resources so long as some of their power (and even money) remains at the beck and call of the don: Putin. China is different. It’s not an oil and gas oligarchy like Russia or the Gulf states. It is somewhat like the US was during the…

> China isn’t at war though Yet.

Maybe they’ve been at Cold War for decades but nobody else noticed.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#86
post #77

I've heard a similar observation phrased slightly differently to describe Russia. If you're looking at a large Russian company, it goes, you're by definition looking at a company that has come to some kind of accommodation with the state -- because if they hadn't, the state would never have permitted them to get large.

And if you fall out of favour, your company gets taken away from you. See Khodorkovsky as an example.

Wasn't it more like "if you try to subvert current power and install your own puppets, all using money you stole with the help of current power"? I think in China they shot such people. In US/EU that would land such person on a few blacklists instead and certain portions of business would be hard to do.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#87
post #9

The interesting thing that after the paper was published Huawei launched a campaign about this topic https://www.huawei.com/minisite/who-runs-huawei/en/ https://twitter.com/huawei/status/1157213584985751553

So according to this, they are owned 88% by current employees. This should be very easily verifiable. Who is telling the truth here?

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#88
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>social ownership of the means of production Slightly off topic but can you clarify what 'social ownership' means, exactly? I've been trying to figure this out for a few weeks now. I just ask since you seem to know. Wikipedia says, "The two major forms of social ownership are society-wide public ownership and cooperative ownership." What's the practical difference between 'society-wide public ownership' and governmen…

>What's the practical difference between 'society-wide public ownership' and government ownership? The government is supposed to represent the people. Typically, socialists (and even market socialists) contend that the current democratic establishment does not represent the people, usually going off Lenin's conception of "bourgeois democracy". This is also behind the most common Marxist rejection of achieving sociali…

I think an example of social ownership would be in Karl Marx own family. Karl Marx was cousins with son of the founder of the Philips N.V. through his mothers sister. In the first 100 years of Philips , a lot of decisions made by the Philips family had social underlying motives.

Building affordable housing, sponsor of sport accommodations reflected some of Marx's reasoning with respect to sharing profits with society.

A century ago the silicon valley of the world was around the Philips factories and then somebody came in and decided to move the whole company to another place.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#89
post #10

This Acquired podcast episode did a great job covering the rise of Huawei https://lnns.co/oPr5nUSzLxX

What’s the point of Listen Notes link? I was hoping for some additional info or for some community input. But it has neither. Just the same general info/description of the episode.

Re: Who Owns Huawei?

#90
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think you are used to Western Companies where the default is private ownership. All major Chinese companies began as state owned enterprises, and it is usually necessary to get investment from one to get a charter. So ostensibly private companies have a big state investment. Plus a trade union committee implies a government structure.

>I think you are used to Western Companies where the default is private ownership. From a continental European perspective I'd contest that. Quite a few of today's multinationals here began as either wholly or partly state owned and/or today have still significant state ownership - especially in infrastructure/utility/telecommunications, but also in "strategic" industries. This includes telcos like Deutsche Telekom (…

That is a good point. Because I am from the US I tend to think of companies as starting private. There are some really important exceptions in the US too: The Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, etc.
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