Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei would welcome a phone call from President Joe Biden and the chance to talk about the Chinese telecom giant’s future on U.S. soil.
Zhengfei assured Biden if he made the call he would definitely pick up, in his first direct remark since the new administration took office.
“I will welcome that, but there has been no call so far,” Ren said, adding he’d like to broach joint development between China and the U.S. if talks came about, according to the official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) news outlet Global Times.
The remark was made last week at the sidelines of an event in Taiyuan, North China’s Shanxi Province, and follow a turbulent 12 months for the company and its dealings with the rest of the world.
The Trump administration announced sanctions against the company last August that isolated it from some technology it sourced from the United States, as Breitbart News reported.
Those impositions caused a shortage of computer chips for the company, hurting the growth of its smartphone business.
The move followed the United Kingdom’s earlier ban on Huawei equipment from its 5G networks and phase out of all current Huawei equipment by the end of 2027.
Now the company sees a way to return under a Joe Biden administration which will be more attuned to appeasment than confrontation, especially when it comes to Chinese business interests.
The Global Times report promised Huawei “is ready to show goodwill to the new administration,” and hopes that would proceed “irrespective as to whether the Biden administration relaxes export ban on the firm.”
Huawei was founded in 1987 and has long been accused of helping facilitate Chinese spying. Beijing officials in return accuse Washington of using national security as an excuse to stop a competitor to U.S. tech industries.
The Biden administration was warned earlier this month it must combat China’s aggressive pursuit of control over global 5G infrastructure, as Breitbart News reported.
Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, said the CCP intends to use Huawei as a vehicle to dominate 5G networks worldwide.
The primary geopolitical question facing the Biden administration is, “What are they going to do with China?,” Manning said, before adding Chinese control of 5G networks would essentially provide the CCP with a kill switch over mobile Internet and data services.