A Huawei Technologies Co logo sits on display inside an electronic goods store in Berlin on December 17. Photo: VCG
Former Huawei employee in US laments government's 'endless assaults on the company'
○ Huawei's so-called 'wolf culture' helped it become successful in foreign countries
○ The top global telecom equipment provider has been going through a tough year in 2018
○ Chinese and foreign employees hold different views on Huawei's rapid expansion and aggressive corporate strategy
When Jason Li was assigned to the Mobile World Congress at the beginning of 2011, shortly after he joined China's Huawei Technologies, he impressed Ren Zhengfei, the former military officer who founded the company in 1987, with a presentation about the company's products in English.
"He [Ren] came to the company's stand the day before the congress kicked off and asked me where I studied before joining the company. I said New Zealand," Li said, noting that Ren immediately suggested that this newly recruited employee should fly to the UK office and help build a local talent center as part of Huawei's global expansion.
The Shenzhen-based company has experienced a rapid expansion over the past 30 years, and has footprints in more than 170 countries and regions. However, it has been under the spotlight recently as Meng Wanzhou - its chief financial officer - was arrested by the Canadian authorities in Vancouver on December 1 at the request of the US on suspicion of violating US trade sanctions.
Under pressure from the US, more governments in the West have been considering blocking Huawei's core products over security concerns, which is considered as a major setback in its development into a multinational giant.
Former employees of Huawei like Li spent years working overseas, and describe Huawei's corporate culture as a "wolf culture" that helped it become successful.
However, this "wolf culture" also sparked controversy, and might have harmed its current operations.
Arduous journey
When Li started working at Huawei's London office, he started everything from zero. From 2012 to 2014, he had traveled to over 20 countries and spent most of his days in countless hotels and airports, sacrificing much of his spare time to reach out to more foreign telecom carriers and companies.
"As soon as I left Egypt after a business trip to Cairo years ago, the country plunged into civil conflict, and some of my former coworkers were stuck in the hotel. And one time in Nigeria, we were exposed to yellow fever," he told the Global Times, referring to those days at Huawei as an unforgettable memory.
Long working hours on challenging projects with constant business trips to remote areas are common descriptions of the workplace culture at the world's largest telecoms equipment maker.
"Employees at Chinese telecom companies such as Huawei and ZTE endured hardships in an earlier stage of global expansion," Xiang Ligang, a veteran industry analyst close to Huawei, told the Global Times in a recent interview.
Ren, the founder of Huawei, is considered one of the most successful Chinese executives during the country's reform and opening-up. He was influenced by the military theories of Mao Zedong, according to a book on Huawei's development published in April.
Like Mao's military theories, which advocated taking small and medium cities and extensive rural areas first as part of a revolution, Ren started from remote and less developed areas to avoid fierce competition with foreign rivals.
"In some countries in Africa and South America, telecom operators could not afford expensive products. They also lacked staff members for maintenance and operations. This gave more room for companies like Huawei and ZTE, which continuously assigned staff to those areas, to grow," Xiang said.
Huawei beat Ericsson and Nokia in the global mobile infrastructure market in 2017, as the Chinese company took 28 percent of the market share and became the largest mobile infrastructure provider worldwide, according to the latest industry report from IHS.
"In the early days, Huawei assigned most of its senior executives to the overseas market to explore business opportunities," Xiang said, noting that accepting these assignments later became an unwritten rule.
Lingering conflicts
Huawei's corporate culture has a long-lasting influence on its staff. An former employee who worked as a programmer at Huawei's then headquarters in Nanshan district, Shenzhen in the early 2000s said that he worked for Huawei for about one year and a half shortly after he graduated from college but the short experience there has instilled a lasting impact on his future career. He learned to be hardworking, persistent and low-key.
Even after he left Huawei, he sometimes, as if he had been brainwashed, still would read aloud the internal letters written by Ren Zhengfei circulated online to his then-girlfriend-now-wife, partly as a way to woo and impress her, and partly as a way to draw inspiration and strength for himself.
The employee in his early 40s who only spoke on condition of anonymity said he worked long hours from about 10 am to 10 pm every working day at Huawei. When he was tired, he would sleep on the mattress under his desk. "All co-workers did the same, especially the managers," he said. "When a new project kicked in, we would work overnight."
This so-called wolf spirit - a high-pressure workplace - is also known as a "mattress culture," as many of its engineers work so hard that they use blankets and mattresses to sleep at the office. And this military-style management was sometimes rejected by its foreign staff overseas, which led to deeper culture clashes.
"As far as I know about this so-called military style management, it's implementing the corporate policy in the most efficient way," Li said.
For example, when he worked at the company's London office, all the staff there were required to punch in and out every day, following strict discipline.
"Sometimes, foreign employees preferred more flexible working hours, especially when it was bad weather. But the headquarters rejected this request," he said, noting that localizing its business in foreign markets was a bumpy road over some similar daily issues.
For some foreign employees, being part of a growing Chinese company is still remarkable experience.
"I have great respect for what the company has achieved… Huawei's growth and expansion have been amazingly impressive. It was exciting to be a part of that," William Plummer, the company's former US vice president of external affairs, told the Global Times.
Plummer, who is considered an eight-year veteran bridging the Chinese company with the US government, was reportedly laid off by Huawei in April amid rising tension between China and the US.
He noted that the experience with Huawei was sometimes frustrating both "due to the US government's endless assaults on the company, and the company's inability to trust and listen to non-Chinese experts in dealing with such matters."
The company has been going through a tough year in 2018. In January, major US carrier AT&T suspended potential cooperation with Huawei in its mobile business over security concerns.
And the "Five Eyes" nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, US) decided to take aim at all Chinese telecoms equipment companies. Australia slashed its use of Chinese-made products in August, followed by New Zealand and the UK.
In particular, the US government targeted Huawei for years, as American counterintelligence agents and prosecutors began exploring possible cases against its leadership back in 2010, according to the New York Times.
Focus on own work
After Meng's arrest, several of Huawei's Chinese employees shared posts on their social media accounts to support each other, claiming that the company can definitely get through this difficult time.
"It will survive widespread bans in Western countries … and we should focus on our own work," a current employee at the company told the Global Times.
Some observers suggested that Huawei's foreign and Chinese staff, who often hold different attitudes in the workplace, may see its struggles in a different light.
Many Chinese staff work very hard overseas because of Huawei's incentive stock options. "Three years after I joined Huawei, I earned about 300,000 yuan ($43,500) a year, and my bonus was almost the same as my basic salary," said a former Chinese employee "Eric," who worked at Huawei from 2009 to 2013 and spent a year in Mumbai, India.
Working long hours is driven by growing business. Many employees understand that the better financial performance Huawei has, the more profits its employees could share in accordance to employee stock ownership plans.
However, to become a true global tech firm, Huawei will need to diversify its leadership, Plummer suggested.
As the case of Meng has entered the judicial system, some believe that Huawei's situation will get worse, even though there is no proof for the US allegations.
Looking into this dilemma, the company's aggressive and customer-centered business strategies might have helped its take over as much market share as possible.
"But in the long run, as a private company that insists on not going public, its opaque financial status also raises questions over its sustainability," Eric said.
The past year was a tough year for China-US relations.
From Washington DC to Iowa to Seattle, this Global Times reporter
recently talked to over 50 government officials, scholars, reporters,
businessmen and farmers in the US and asked them what they think of the
trade war and China-US relations
China should be confident in this: As long as China
maintains steady peripheral diplomacy, the US can do nothing to China
and Beijing will gain the initiative in diplomacy toward Washington.
Extradition case: A home owned by the family
of Meng Wanzhou, who is being held on an extradition warrant, is
pictured in Vancouver. — Reuters
For Huawei CFO, an Idyllic Summer Playground Turns Into a Prison
Vancouver plays a special role for Meng Wanzhou, as it
does for many a wealthy Chinese -- a place to park some assets, educate
your children, and just let your hair down from time to time.
Meng -- chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co.,
a telecom equipment giant present in more than 170 countries -- would
carve a few weeks out of her punishing travel schedule every year for a
break in the Canadian city.
She’d
time it for the summer, when her children would be there and when the
city’s crystal waters and craggy mountains would emerge from 10 months
of rain to be bathed in long, golden days of sunshine. Just last August,
she was seen strolling through a local park, snapping photos with her
in-laws.
Her place of retreat has now become a jail. On Dec. 1, Meng
stepped off a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong around noon, and had
planned a 12-hour stopover in Vancouver before heading on to Mexico.
Instead, she was arrested by Canadian authorities and faces a U.S.
extradition request on charges she conspired to defraud banks, including
HSBC Bank Plc, so that they unwittingly cleared millions of dollars in transactions linked to Iran, in violation of U.S. sanctions.
This time, her stay looks to become an extended one --
extradition cases can sometimes take years. Whether she spends that time
in a cell or under house arrest may hinge in part upon her ties to
Vancouver and if they’re considered deep enough to stop her from
fleeing.
Meng’s bail hearing resumes Monday at 10 a.m. local time.
It’s expected to last the whole day as her defense team calls
witnesses, including security companies, to testify on ways to address
flight risk.
“In essence, Ms. Meng vacations for two weeks in Vancouver --
I say that is not a meaningful connection to this jurisdiction,” Crown
attorney John Gibb-Carsley said Friday at the six-hour bail hearing in
Vancouver as more than 100 spectators watched from a glass-walled
gallery.
Meng -- wearing a dark green sweat suit, her posture
impeccable -- watched from the back of the courtroom with her
interpreter, occasionally taking notes on a sheet of paper. The
46-year-old has an incentive to flee home to China, which has no
extradition treaty with the U.S., and she has the vast resources and
connections to remain out of reach indefinitely, Gibb-Carsley said.
Canada has long been a favored destination for millionaire
migrants, and Vancouver, especially, for the Asian ones. But
increasingly that’s been stoking tensions in a city awash in Chinese cash, with wealthy part-time residents blamed for property prices that have made Vancouver the most unaffordable city in North America.
Meng, who first visited Vancouver 15 years ago, bought a six-bedroom house
with her husband Xiaozong Liu in 2009 that’s now assessed at C$5.6
million ($4.2 million), according to property records and an affidavit
by Meng read aloud in court. In 2016 they bought a second property, a
brick-and-glass mansion set in a 21,000-square-foot lot assessed at
C$16.3 million. Purchased with mortgages from HSBC, she’s offered to
post the family’s equity in both as part of her bail.
Meng and Liu
live in Shenzhen with their 10-year-old daughter. She also has three
sons from a previous marriage, one of whom attends a prep school in
Massachusetts. If granted bail, the family would move into one of their
Vancouver homes and the son in Massachusetts would join them for
Christmas, Meng’s lawyer told the court.
Meng WanzhouPhotographer: Dennis Zhe/Huawei Technologies Co.
Three
of her four children have done part of their schooling in Vancouver,
and they still spend weeks -- sometimes months -- in the city during
summer. Meng, who also goes by the names Sabrina and Cathy, holds two
passports, one from China and one from Hong Kong, and until 2009 also
had Canadian permanent residency.
Her defense argues that those
ties are substantive, and proposes she wait it out at one of her houses,
under surveillance, tagged by a GPS device, and subject to unannounced
police checks.
“She would not flee,” Meng’s defense lawyer David Martin responded. “She has a home here.”
Meng
is the daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, whose net worth was
estimated at $3.2 billion, according to Gibb-Carsley. A million-dollar
bail to that family is equivalent to a C$156 bail for an upper-middle
class Canadian family with C$500,000 in assets, he said.
“I’m not saying that wealthy people can’t get bail,” said
Gibb-Carsley. “But I’m saying in terms of magnitude to feel the pull of
bail, we are in a different universe.” - Bloomberg
Sabrina Meng in her own words: Huawei CFO cites health problems in her bid to secure bail in Canada
The US is seeking to extradite Meng in relation to Huawei’s alleged use
of an unofficial subsidiary, Skycom, to skirt sanctions on Iran
Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies,
was arrested last Friday in Vancouver, Canada at the request of the US
and accused of fraudulently representing the company to get around US
and EU sanctions on Iran.
The US is seeking to extradite Meng in relation to Huawei’s alleged use of an unofficial subsidiary, Skycom, to skirt the sanctions, a lawyer representing the Canadian government said. Meng was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on December 1 as she changed planes and has been detained ever since.
Meng, a daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, attended the British Columbia Supreme Court last Friday for a bail hearing, as the US seeks her extradition on fraud charges. The hearing ended without a decision and will continue on Monday.
Ahead of the continuation, here are some of the details of Meng’s personal affidavit filed with the Supreme Court:
Meng describes herself as a 46-year old Chinese citizen, holding a Hong Kong and Chinese passport, who lives in Shenzhen.
Meng says her family have extensive ties to Canada, and Vancouver in particular.
Although Meng relinquished permanent resident status in Canada, she says her family have bought two homes in Vancouver.
Those two homes include a property bought in 2009 with her husband at 4005 28th Street, and another at 1603 Matthews Street in 2016.
Meng says she tries to spend at least 2-3 weeks in Vancouver every summer. Since 2012 her children, who attended school in Vancouver, no longer live there.
After being detained and interrogated at Vancouver International Airport on Friday, Meng says she was taken to Richmond General Hospital after feeling unwell due to severe hypertension, a condition she has struggled with “for years”.
Meng says she continues to feel unwell and is worried about her health “deteriorating” while she is incarcerated.
Meng says she has had numerous health problems throughout her life, including thyroid cancer, for which she underwent surgery in 2011.
In May 2018, Meng says she had surgery to remedy health issues related to sleep apnoea and still has difficulty eating solid foods – which has caused her to modify her diet. She has received daily packages of medicines from her doctor for years to treat her ailments.
Meng points out she has no previous criminal record in China or anywhere else.
If she is granted bail, Meng offers to surrender both her passports, to live at her home at 4005 28th Street, to have her family live with her as permitted by Canada’s immigration laws, she is willing to pledge the equity of either or both her houses as security, or to make a cash deposit as directed by the court.
Meng says she would not breach any bail conditions because of the reputational damage it could do to Huawei, the company her father founded.
Finally, Meng says she is innocent of the allegations levelled against her and will contest the allegations at trial in the US if she is ultimately surrendered.
Case: In the matter of the Extradition Act, S.C. 1999, c. 18 as
amended in the matter of the Attorney General of Canada on behalf of the
United States of America and Wanzhou Meng, also known as “Cathy Meng”
and “Sabrina Meng”.. - South China Morning Post
Uncertain future: In this courtroom sketch,
Meng sits beside a translator during a bail hearing in Vancouver. She
faces extradition to the US on charges of trying to evade US sanctions
on Iran. – AP
The arrest of Huawei 'heiress' has thrown a rare spotlight on the family of the reclusive smartphone giant founder, Ren Zhengfei.
WHEN Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou appeared on Wednesday in a Vancouver courtroom, clad in an unbranded green tracksuit, the moment was witnessed by a single reporter from the local Vancouver Sun newspaper who happened to notice her name on the hearings list that morning.
By the end of the day, Meng’s arrest in Canada at the request of Washington was the biggest story in the world.
And when her bail hearing resumed on Friday, Meng entered court to see about 100 reporters, craning to look at her through two layers of bulletproof glass.
Meng who faces extradition to the United States, was charged for helping Huawei allegedly cover up violations of US sanctions on Iran.
Like many top Chinese executives, Meng is a mysterious figure even in her home country, but the 46-year-old chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies had been widely tipped to one day take the helm of the tech giant her father founded.
That was until her shock arrest, a move that has entangled her in the protracted diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Crucially, Meng is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei – one of China’s leading businessmen, an ex-People’s Liberation Army officer and an elected member of the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
In other words, Meng is part of China’s elite.
Her father Ren moves in the highest government circles in China and founded Huawei in 1988, after he retired from the Chinese armed forces. Born into a rural family in a remote mountainous town in the southwestern province of Guizhou, Ren rose to the equivalent rank of a deputy regimental chief in the PLA and served until 1983, according to his official Huawei biography.
Officials in some governments, particularly the United States, have voiced concern that his company is close to the Chinese military and government. Huawei has repeatedly insisted Beijing has no influence over it.
Ren is one of the most watched entrepreneurs in China and was on Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and again in 2013.
But like his elder daughter, Ren has largely kept a low profile.
Ren has married three times. His first wife was Meng Jun, daughter of a former senior official in Sichuan province, Meng Dongbuo; she bore Ren two children: Sabrina Meng Wanzhou and a son, Meng Ping.
Meng’s current wife is Yao Ling, who gave him a younger daughter, Annabel Yao, 20. In a rare move, the three posed last month for a family photoshoot for French lifestyle magazine Paris Match. Annabel, a Harvard computer science student, became a sensation at last month’s Le Bal des Debutantes (or Crillon Ball) in Paris.
Ren’s third wife is Su Wei who, according to Chinese media reports, is a millennial who was formerly his secretary.
Interestingly, all his children opted not to take on their father’s surname – Meng adopted her mother’s surname after her parents divorced. According to Chinese news websites, Meng’s brother Ping, who also works for Huawei, followed her in taking their mother’s surname to “avoid unnecessary attention” – though the son was also known as Ren Ping in the past.
(This practice is not uncommon among the families of China’s elite. The co-founder of Chinese auction house China Guardian, Wang Yannan, opted not to take her father’s surname – she is the daughter of late Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang.)
Born in 1972, Meng joined the company in 1993, obtained a master’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1998, and rose up the ranks over the years, mostly holding financial roles.
In her first media appearance before the Chinese press in 2013, Meng said she had first joined the company as a secretary“whose job was just to take calls”.
In the interview with China’s 21st Century Business Herald, Meng said she began her first job at China Construction Bank after graduating with her first degree in 1992.
Arrested Meng: Like her father, the Huawei CFO had led a quiet life, out of the spotlight. – Reuters
“I joined Huawei one year later because a branch closed its operations due to the business integration [of CCB],” said Meng, describing her early jobs in Huawei as “very trivial”.
Meng has served in various roles at the company since, until her latest role as the Hong Kong-based CFO of Huawei.
In 2003, Meng established Huawei’s globally unified finance organisation, with standardised structures, financial processes, financial systems, and IT platforms.
Since 2005, Meng has led the founding of five shared service centers around the world, and she was also the driver behind completion of a global payment center in Shenzhen, China. These centres have boosted Huawei’s accounting efficiency and monitoring quality, providing accounting services to sustain the company’s rapid overseas expansion.
Meng has also been in charge of the integrated financial services (IFS) transformation program, an eight-year partnership between Huawei and IBM since 2007. This has helped Huawei develop its data systems and rules for resource allocation, and improve operating efficiency and internal controls.
In recent years, Meng has focused on advancing detailed financial management at Huawei, working to align these efforts with the company’s long-term development plans.
Meng’s importance at Huawei became apparent in 2011, when she was first named as a board member. Company insiders describe her as capable and hardworking. Earlier this year, Huawei promoted Meng, to vice-chairwoman as part of a broader reshuffle. Meng is one of four executives who hold the vice-chair role, while retaining her CFO position. Despite assertions by Ren that none of his family members would succeed him in the top job, it is widely speculated that she was being groomed to take over the reins of the company eventually.
Married with a son and a daughter, Meng’s revelation that her husband did not work in the industry, dispelled the speculation she was married to a senior Huawei executive.
Meng did not conduct public interviews before 2013 and has seldom mentioned her personal life until recently, when she used her son to illustrate the importance of persistence.
“My son did not want to go swimming one day and he almost knelt on the ground and begged my husband so that he would not have to go. But he was rejected,” Meng said in a speech at Chongqing international school in 2016. “Now my son is proud to represent his school in swimming competitions.”
Meng recently made a speech at a Singapore academic conference in 2018, in which she talked of Huawei’s future role in technology development.
“Without universities, the world would be left in darkness. Without industry, science would be left in the ivory tower,” said Meng. “The fourth industrial revolution is on the horizon and artificial intelligence is one of its core enabling technologies. Huawei is lucky to be part of it.”
While her brother, Meng Ping, as well as her father’s younger brother and his current wife all work at Huawei and related companies, none has held such senior management roles.
“The other family members are in the back office, Sabrina is CFO and sits on the board,” a Huawei source said. “So she is viewed as the boss’s most likely successor.”
But her fate now is uncertain.
She faces up to 30 years’ jail for the alleged crime. Her lawyer in Canada, David Martin, had told the court that Meng posed no flight risk and should be granted bail. To flee would shame her in front of her father and all of China, said Martin.
“Her father would not recognise her. Her colleagues would hold her in contempt. She would be a pariah,” he said.
Meng leaned forward in her seat and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.
When the hearing adjourned, she was led away with her head bowed, a goldfish in a bowl that is the biggest story in the world. – South China Morning Post
Younger Huawei daughter: ‘I’m just a normal girl’
Arresting Yao: ‘My daily life is actually pretty boring compared to this.’
JUST last month, the reclusive Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei made headlines by appearing in French lifestyle magazine Paris Match with his younger daughter and current wife.
The daughter, Annabel Yao, 20, posed with a smile in front of a grand piano with her mother, identified by the magazine as Yao Ling, and Ren, who wore a blue shirt with his hand resting on her shoulder.
Suddenly, the whole family are making headlines again – even if for quite different reasons.
Few outsiders had previously heard of the younger daughter, a Harvard computer science student and ballerina. But Yao recently made a high-profile appearance at the exclusive Le Bal Debutante ball in Paris.
While Le Bal des Debutantes in Paris each year is a nod to the tradition of young society ladies entering the elite social scene of Europe, these days it courts modern debutantes, aged 16 to 21, who are chosen for their looks, brains and famous parents – prominent in business, entertainment and politics.
They parade in glamorous couture gowns, waltz with their cavaliers – young men who accompany the “debs” for the evening – and take part in photo shoots and interviews.
The schedule at the event, organised by Ophélie Renouard, is full of young women such as Baroness Ludmilla von Oppenheim, from Germany; Julia McCaw, daughter of AT&T founder Craig McCaw; and Yao – one of three debutantes chosen for the opening waltz this year.
“I definitely treated this as a debut to the world,” said Yao after the ball. “From now on, I’ll no longer be this girl living in her own world, I’ll be stepping into the adult world where I have to watch my own actions and have my actions be watched by others.”
Today’s Le Bal, is a diverse affair, a microcosm of the shifting tides of the global elite. Of the 19 debutantes of 2018, there were young ladies from India and America, Europeans from Portugal, France, Belgium and Germany, as well as Hong Kong’s Angel Lee, Kayla Uytengsu from the Philippines and China’s Yao.
Yao – who has lived in Britain, Hong Kong and Shanghai – was one of several Chinese debutantes in recent years. Hollywood offspring, such as the daughters of actors Forest Whitaker, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone, have also become Le Bal regulars.
“All the girls were down-to-earth, easygoing, helpful and outgoing. No one was pretentious,” said Yao.
“All of them attended top universities or high schools like Stanford, Brown and Columbia, so it’s a group of girls who are privileged, but also work really hard.”
Diverse affair: Today’s ‘Le Bal’ is a microcosm of the shifting tides of the global elite like Yao (far right, front row).
As they swapped their jeans for tiaras and couture gowns and trade teenage antics for waltzing, the girls got to play fairytale princesses for three days and make their grand debut in high society.
They all arrived in Paris two days before the ball to meet, socialise with other girls and their cavaliers (Yao’s cavalier was the young Count Gaspard de Limburg-Stirum), rehearse and take part in portrait sessions.
Girls are given questionnaires about the fashion styles they like, and then choose from a selection. Yao donned a champagne gold J Mendel gown.
“An American designer with a very French style I wanted something modern,” she said. “I’m not super girlie inside, so I prefer something more chic and not so princessy It’s very elegant, and I’m not a fan of very [strongly] pigmented hues. I also loved the tulle texture of the dress, as it reminds me of a ballerina.”
“I definitely feel very honoured to be included, as there are only 19 girls in the world this year,” Yao added. “It means I have to work harder, try to accomplish great things in my life and be a role model for other girls.”
She said: “As people who have more privilege than others, it’s more important for us to help those with less opportunity. I want to get involved in philanthropy and charity I still consider myself a normal girl; it’s important for me to work hard and better myself every day.
“My daily life is actually pretty boring compared to this. I usually live like a normal student.”
Computer science is a heavy subject with a high workload, so she studies a lot. Her spare time is often taken up at the Harvard Ballet company (she’s been dancing since childhood). “I try to dance as much as possible,” she said.
A quick glance at the Ivy League student’s social media shows her jetting around the world wearing Dior, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent, but she’s quick to show her serious side. This summer, she did an internship at Microsoft “on a team focusing on machine learning and image recognition”.
However, she noted: “As much as I enjoy coding, I enjoy personal interactions a lot I have a passion for fashion, PR and entertainment.”
In the future, she sees herself working on the business side of technology. “I’ll try to integrate the tech knowledge I have,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll be a software engineer but maybe I’ll be more on the management side. I enjoy building connections.” – South China Morning Post
The Chinese government should seriously go behind the US
tendency to abuse legal procedures to suppress China's high-tech
enterprises. It should increase interaction with the US and exert
pressure when necessary. China has been exercising restraint, but the US
cannot act recklessly. US President Donald Trump should rein in the
hostile activities of some Americans who may imperil Sino-US relations.
In custody: A profile of Meng is displayed on a
computer at a Huawei store in Beijing. The Chinese government, speaking
through its embassy in Canada, strenuously objected to the arrest, and
demanded Meng’s immediate release. — AP
The sewing lines at Bernhard Furniture Company which where skilled craft
jobs are growing without the help of tariffs, and company officials
https://youtu.be/OCk4VkAKKFc
Trump's tariffs won't restore U.S. furniture jobs :
https://www.reuters.tv/v/PvWi/2018/09/27/trump-s-tariffs-won-t-restore-u-s-furniture-jobs
In a town where a 30-feet tall chair is the chief landmark, and which is synonymous with a U.S. furniture industry decimated over the years by imports from China, many greet the possibility of tariffs on Chinese goods with a shrug.
No wonder. Of three once bustling Thomasville furniture plants in the city limits, one is being demolished and cleared for parkland, another may become the site of a new police station, and a third is being converted into apartments.
President Donald Trump is threatening to levy tariffs of up to 25 percent on $500 billion of goods imported from China each year, including roughly $20 billion of furniture, as a way to bring back hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs lost to China and other low-cost competitors.
Yet, the transformation of U.S. industries since China’s emergence as the world’s low-cost producer almost two decades ago means many no longer directly compete with Chinese imports, so tariffs may not translate so easily into more U.S. jobs.
At family-owned Bernhardt Furniture in Lenoir, some 90 miles west of Thomasville, executives say it would take about $30 million in capital investment - some 10 percent of annual sales - to resurrect standard wood furniture lines now mainly made in countries like China and Vietnam.
That is too much to commit based on a policy that a future administration could reverse.
"The theory is you turn (imports) off, the jobs come back. That's not really true... The buildings don't exist. The people don't exist. The machinery does not exist," to make the sorts of furniture that now gets imported, said Alex Bernhardt Jr., chief executive and the company founder's great grandson.
What the company needs now, executives say, is the open markets and steady economy that have allowed it to grow its workforce from below 800 at the end of the 2007-2009 recession to almost 1,500 today - partly on the basis of exports to China.
DIFFERENT COMPANY
That growth has been largely driven by demand for more customized, higher end furniture. In expanding, the 129-year-old company has been hiring not only factory workers, but also designers, marketing experts and other professionals.
In all, it is a different firm from what it was three decades ago when it first began dividing product lines between the United States and Asia.
Economists say the same is true across much of U.S. manufacturing. To invest and hire more workers, executives would need certainty, for example, that consumers would prefer U.S.-made products at a potentially higher price. They would need confidence that tariffs would last beyond the Trump administration and that production could not be shifted to other more cost-competitive countries.
Even then, there may be little incentive to go back to old product lines for industries that have changed dramatically because of globalization.
Across the Rust Belt and the former factory towns of the south, the transformation is apparent. In Buffalo, an old steel mill is now a solar panel factory, and a retail goods manufacturer now houses an office and restaurant park. Near Dayton, Ohio, a shuttered GM plant has reopened as a Chinese-owned auto glass company. Abandoned factories throughout North Carolina have landed on the Environmental Protection Agency's list of "brownfield" sites that need cleanup.
Some companies are considering moving production from China as a result of the tariffs, but the jobs are unlikely to head home.
Illinois-based CCTY Bearing, for example, said it planned to move U.S.-bound production from Zhenjiang, China, to a new plant near Mumbai in India to keep labor costs down.
JLab Audio's China-made Bluetooth products are not being taxed yet, but its chief executive Win Cramer had been scouting for suppliers in Vietnam and Mexico.
"I would love to build products onshore, but consumers have proven time and time again that "Made in America" isn't as valuable a statement as it once was," Cramer said. "They make decisions based on the cost."
The price of, say, its Bluetooth earbud would jump from $20 to as much as $50 if it was made in the United States, Cramer said, far more than what tariffs would add to the cost of imports.
To be sure, early reactions suggest that foreign companies that make U.S.-bound goods in China may move some of that production to the United States. Still, countries such as Vietnam may ultimately benefit the most from Trump's tariffs.
Japanese construction and mining equipment maker Komatsu Ltd < 6301.T > has said it has already shifted some of its production of parts for U.S.-built excavators from China. Part of that production moved to the United States, but some also went to Mexico and Japan.
In South Korea, LG Electronics <066570 .ks=""> and its rival Samsung Electronics <005930 .ks=""> are considering moving parts of U.S.-bound refrigerator and air conditioner production to Mexico, Vietnam or back home, but not to the United States, according to company sources and local media.
STEADY RECOVERY
The responses to Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum show how such steps create both winners and losers.
Producers such as U.S. Steel and Century Aluminum have said they will add at least several hundred jobs as a result of the higher prices they can charge.
Mid-Continental Nail, however, laid off 130 workers because of those higher steel prices, and furniture parts maker Leggett & Platt has warned that rising metal prices would prompt it to shift production abroad.
So far, Washington has imposed duties on $250 billion of Chinese imports and Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on all Chinese goods.
Many economists project new tariffs would on balance either slow down hiring or cause job losses in a manufacturing sector where employment has grown by 10 percent over the past eight years without special protection.
(Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Q1AFUW)
The furniture industry, among the hardest hit by Chinese imports, has added 43,000 jobs since its employment hit a low of 350,000 in 2011, helped by the recovering housing market and strong consumer demand.
Industry officials say skilled upholsterers and other workers are hard to find, echoing the Federal Reserve's concern about the impact of worker shortages on the U.S. economy.
In Thomasville, few expect that tariffs will bring furniture manufacturing back to its heyday, nor does the community need it, says city manager Kelly Craver, whose parents worked in the furniture and textile industries.
Since the recession, Thomasville has become a residential hub for growing nearby cities such as Greensboro and Charlotte. It also has its own mix of manufacturing and white collar jobs.
Mohawk Industries recently expanded its Thomasville laminate flooring facility while the Old Dominion Freight Line transportation firm and the fast-growing Cook Out burger chain have corporate headquarters there.
"We, for the very first time in this city's existence, are going to have a diversified economy," Craver said.
US tariffs on $34bn (£25.7bn) of Chinese goods have come into effect, signalling the start of a trade war between the world's two largest economies.
The 25% levy came into effect at midnight Washington time.
China has retaliated by imposing a similar 25% tariff on 545 US products, also worth a total of $34bn.
Beijing accused the US of starting the "largest trade war in economic history".
"After the US activated its tariff measures against China, China's measures against the US took effect immediately," said Lu Kang, a foreign ministry spokesman.
Two companies in Shanghai told the BBC that customs authorities were delaying clearance processes for US imports on Friday.
The American tariffs are the result of President Donald Trump's bid to protect US jobs and stop "unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China".
The White House said it would consult on tariffs on another $16bn of products, which Mr Trump has suggested could come into effect later this month.
The imposition of the tariffs had little impact on Asian stock markets. The Shanghai Composite closed 0.5% higher, but ended the week 3.5% lower - its seventh consecutive week of losses.
Tokyo closed 1.1% higher, but Hong Kong fell 0.5% in late trading.
Hikaru Sato at Daiwa Securities said markets had already factored in the impact of the first round of tariffs.
Mr Trump has already imposed tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, and started charging levies on the imports of steel and aluminium from the European Union, Mexico and Canada.
He has also threatened a 10% levy on an additional $200bn of Chinese goods if Beijng "refuses to change its practices".
The president upped the stakes on Thursday, saying the amount of goods subject to tariffs could rise to more than $500bn.
"You have another 16 [billion dollars] in two weeks, and then, as you know, we have $200bn in abeyance and then after the $200bn, we have $300bn in abeyance. OK? So we have 50 plus 200 plus almost 300," he said.
The US tariffs imposed so far would affect the equivalent of 0.6% of global trade and account for 0.1% of global GDP, according to Morgan Stanley in a research note issued before Mr Trump's comments on Thursday.
Analysts are also concerned about the impact on others in the supply chain and about an escalation of tensions between the US and China in general.
Timeline
US-China trade war
16 February, 2018
US Commerce Department recommends a 24%
tariff on all steel imports and 7.7% on aluminium. It's seen as a policy
directed at China, which is the world's largest maker of steel.
22 March, 2018
China says it will impose tariffs on US goods worth $3bn.
22 March, 2018
President Trump announces a plan to impose
further tariffs on Chinese imports worth $60bn but grants temporary
exemptions from aluminium and steel tariffs to the EU, South Korea and
other countries.
2 April, 2018
China imposes 25% tariffs on 128 US products including wine and pork.
3 April, 2018
The US Government proposes new additional
tariffs on Chinese imports worth $50bn. These include: televisions,
medical equipment, aircraft parts and batteries.
4 April, 2018
China proposes tariffs on US goods worth $50bn.
5 April, 2018
President Trump announces he's considering additional tariffs on Chinese products worth $100bn.
15 June, 2018
President Donald Trump announces new
tariffs on goods worth $34bn will come into force on 6 July 2018. He
also proposes a new list of tariffs for imported goods worth $16bn.
15 June, 2018
China says it will respond to these new US
impositions with it's own new tariffs on agricultural products and
manufactured goods.
6 July, 2018
New tariffs announced by both countries in June come into effect.
https://youtu.be/OCk4VkAKKFc 
