Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei has been pacifying employees earlier this spring, instructing them to never allow “anti-U.S. sentiments” be the driving force behind their work, South China Morning Post reports, citing an internal memo dated April 8 which addresses several units of the Shenzhen-based tech giant. Instead of resorting to nationalistic ideas and initiatives, Huawei ought to acknowledge the “strengths of the U.S.,” the memo reads, calling for the company’s workforce to recognize “the gap” between the firm and its American rivals and learn from the competition instead of antagonizing it or engaging in any kind of hostilities.
The internal communication was circulated within the company’s ranks some months after Huawei’s latest attempt to penetrate the smartphone market in the United States on a significant scale failed due to stateside lawmakers’ efforts to pressure AT&T into dropping its planned Mate 10 Pro partnership with the Chinese manufacturer. Huawei has long been accused of posing a national security risk to the U.S. government and its citizens due to its close ties to the People’s Republic of China, having been dismissing such notions as groundless for over a decade now. While the company isn’t banned from operating in the world’s largest mobile flagship market, its inability to strike a retail agreement with one of the four national network operators is an insurmountable obstacle to its ambitions as the vast majority of smartphone sales in the U.S. are closed by wireless carriers instead of electronics retailers.
The newly reported memo was authored before Washington moved against ZTE, crippling the China-owned telecom giant in April with an unprecedented supply ban which President Trump is currently working to replace with a major fine and other concessions so as to return the company to business while still punishing it over its failure to comply with a 2017 settlement that saw it plead guilty to a conspiracy to violate import sanctions imposed on Iran and North Korea. ZTE and Huawei‘s issues with the U.S. underline trade-related tensions that have been growing between Washington and Beijing in recent times, with neither company being likely to grow its stateside business in the immediate future.