Transcript: Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei’s responses to media questions at a round table this week

The following is a company-provided transcript of responses from the founder of Huawei Technologies Ren Zhengfei to questions at a media round table that took place in Shenzhen on January 15.

Q: Can you give a little background on how your experience in military shapes your management style with Huawei … and now that Huawei is under a bit of scrutiny worldwide, how are those ties with the military impacting Huawei’s future as it continues to grow?

Ren: I joined the military during China's Cultural Revolution. At that time, there was chaos almost everywhere, including in agriculture and the industry. The country was facing very difficult times. These difficulties were reflected in people's diets and clothing. I remember that, back then, at the most difficult of times, every Chinese person was allotted only one-third of a meter of cloth. That amount could be used only for patching. So I never wore clothes without patches when I was young.

The central government hoped that every Chinese person could get at least one decent piece of clothing every year, so they decided to introduce the most advanced equipment from a French company called Technip Speichim and build a large synthetic fibre factory. This was used to produce some synthetic fibres with the hope that every Chinese person could be given synthetic fabric clothes. The factory was situated in a northeast city called Liaoyang, which is along a river called the Taizi River. The conditions there were very harsh. Back then, China was in complete chaos, and the central government was trying to mobilise local engineering teams for the construction of that factory. However, no team answered the call. Therefore, the government had to mobilise military teams to build the factory.

It was a very advanced set of equipment from the French company, and the engineering capabilities of the military were not up to the task. I had been to college, and people like me could play a role in that project.

When we just arrived at the site, it was dozens of square kilometres, and there was no housing at all. So everyone slept on the grass. Later, the factory got some funding and built some shabby housing that provided little shelter from the rain and wind. It was minus 20-something degrees Celsius outside. You can image how harsh the conditions were. If you ask me how I felt back then, I would say: First, we had been given access to the world's most advanced technology. That French company had a very high level of automated controls that no Chinese companies had. This was the first time that I had learned what the world's most advanced technology looked like.

Second, we learned to endure hardship. Our housing was very shabby, so we constantly felt cold as it could not protect us from the wind. Just imagine, the temperature could drop to minus 28 degrees Celsius. China was facing huge economic challenges at that time. The supply of meat and cooking oil was very limited. For ordinary people living in Northeastern China, their monthly supply of cooking oil was around 150g. There was no supply of fresh vegetables at all, so we had to pickle some vegetables like cabbages and radishes we got in autumn in large concrete pots, and rely on pickled foods for six months at a time. Our staple food was sorghum. It was far from delicious. So in a nutshell, we learned from the world's most advanced technology while living a life that could be seen as primitive. That is how I felt back then.