It seems that the leadership of Chinese tech giant Huawei has adopted some rather war-like vocabulary amid the company's complicated relationship with the United States, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Citing a transcript that was allegedly confirmed by two Huawei executives, the media outlet states that during his previous visit to the company's R&D center in Hangzhou, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei told the employees to take pointers from Google and to "surge forward, killing as you go, to blaze us a trail of blood".
The visit in question took place about a month after Ren's daugher, Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada in 2018, and now faces extradition to the United States on charges of violating US trade sanctions.
Later, while at a Huawei campus in Wuhan, Ren announced to the employees that "the company has entered a state of war".
The media outlet also cites a memo penned by Huawei's head of public affairs Catherine Chen.
"Mr Ren has pointed out the right way forward for us, which is to adopt a Western mindset to solve the issues we face in Western markets", Chen reportedly stated.
A later memo cited by WSJ also describes Ren likening Huawei's success in convincing the UK to let them build the 5G networks in the country to “the success of the Battle of Stalingrad, which was a turning point that reshaped the global landscape”.
Having previously banned US federal agencies from using Huawei products, the Trump administration also put the Chinese company on a trade blacklist and mounted a global push to cut it out of the lucrative 5G market.
Washington also moved to curb Huawei’s chip-making capability and adopted a rule that prevents US phone carriers in rural areas from tapping into government subsidies for Huawei’s equipment.
While the US accuses Huawei of stealing trade secrets and spying on behalf of the Chinese government, Beijing and the company vehemently deny the allegations.
