4 ms·

> The paper you link doesn't show that Huawei is government-owned (as is pretty clear from the abstract) You're wrong. The paper's abstract says that Huawei is

> The paper you link doesn't show that Huawei is government-owned (as is pretty clear from the abstract) You're wrong. The paper's abstract says that Huawei is effectively government-owned, given the known facts. Read the last quoted paragraph carefully: > * The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company. > * We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected. > ... > * Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned. Also, ownership is just a specific cultural form of control. It's not synonymous with control, and lack of ownership does not necessarily imply a lack of control. The issue with Huawei isn't so much who owns is but who controls it. Hair-splitting arguments about ownership just distract from the issue.

yorwba 7y ago
> if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned. That's the "they're Chinese, so obviously they can't be independent" argument. It not necessarily wrong, but also not terribly illuminating. As you say, a more interesting question is that of control. Given the level of disunity within the Chinese government, a useful answer to that question would really need to break it down to the personal allegiances of the decision-makers. Unfortunately, those are unlikely to be recorded in publicly available documents. In any case, Chinese government officials will extend their support even to Chinese companies they do not own, control or otherwise directly benefit from, so long as there's no competitor for whom that is the case.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > That's the "they're Chinese, so obviously they can't be independent" argument. It not necessarily wrong, but also not terribly illuminating. What do you mean by that? China doesn't have independent trade unions, because the Chinese Communist Party doesn't allow political organization outside of its control, which independent trade unions would be. It's worth pointing that out because western misconceptions could cloud understanding. See https://clb.org.hk/content/labour-relations-china-some-frequently-asked-questions https://clb.org.hk/content/labour-relations-china-some-frequ...: > Do workers in China have freedom of association? > No. There is only one legally-mandated trade union, namely the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). All enterprise trade unions have to be affiliated to the ACFTU via a hierarchical network of local and regional union federations. (See simplified organizational chart right). The ACFTU is primarily under the control and direction of the Chinese Communist Party. Any attempt to establish an independent trade union movement is seen by the Party as political threat. The only time in the history of the People’s Republic of China that an independent union was established was the short-lived Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation in 1989. The BWAF was declared an illegal organization and disbanded in the wake of the military crackdown in Beijing on 4 June 1989. See https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/chinalbr02/chinalbr0802-01.htm https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/chinalbr02/chinalbr0802-01....: > At no point over the last twenty-five years, despite widespread unemployment, serious labor law violations, and appallingly dangerous working conditions, has the ACFTU attempted to distance itself from the CCP leadership or to question its policies. It has not defended the principle of independent union organizing, and it has never spoken out against laws and regulations routinely employed to justify imprisonment of labor activists who organize outside its aegis. ---- > Given the level of disunity within the Chinese government, a useful answer to that question would really need to break it down to the personal allegiances of the decision-makers. The Communist party is united enough to make that irrelevant to the question of who controls Huawei in the contexts where it's typically posed.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    > What do you mean by that? By that I mean that there's no need to trace ownership to the trade union and conclude that because independent trade unions aren't allowed, the company can't be independent either. You could just go straight to Article 17 of the Company Law of the People's Republic of China [1], which reads "The grass-root organizations of the Communist Party of China in companies shall carry out their activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China." So no Chinese company could possibly be independent, trade union or not. That's on paper anyway. In practice, Chinese companies undermine each other and government agencies all the time, instead of harmoniously cooperating to fulfill the CCP's grand plan. Similarly, membership in the ACFTU doesn't tell you anything about the actual power dynamics. [1] http://english.court.gov.cn/2016-04/14/content_24532981_2.htm http://english.court.gov.cn/2016-04/14/content_24532981_2.ht...

yorwba 7y ago

> if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned. That's the "they're Chinese, so obviously they can't be independent" argument. It not necessarily wrong, but also not terribly illuminating. As you say, a more interesting question is that of control. Given the level of disunity within the Chinese government, a useful answer to that question would really need to break it down to the personal allegiances of the decision-makers. Unfortunately, those are unlikely to be recorded in publicly available documents. In any case, Chinese government officials will extend their support even to Chinese companies they do not own, control or otherwise directly benefit from, so long as there's no competitor for whom that is the case.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> That's the "they're Chinese, so obviously they can't be independent" argument. It not necessarily wrong, but also not terribly illuminating. What do you mean by that? China doesn't have independent trade unions, because the Chinese Communist Party doesn't allow political organization outside of its control, which independent trade unions would be. It's worth pointing that out because western misconceptions could cloud understanding. See https://clb.org.hk/content/labour-relations-china-some-frequently-asked-questions https://clb.org.hk/content/labour-relations-china-some-frequ...: > Do workers in China have freedom of association? > No. There is only one legally-mandated trade union, namely the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). All enterprise trade unions have to be affiliated to the ACFTU via a hierarchical network of local and regional union federations. (See simplified organizational chart right). The ACFTU is primarily under the control and direction of the Chinese Communist Party. Any attempt to establish an independent trade union movement is seen by the Party as political threat. The only time in the history of the People’s Republic of China that an independent union was established was the short-lived Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation in 1989. The BWAF was declared an illegal organization and disbanded in the wake of the military crackdown in Beijing on 4 June 1989. See https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/chinalbr02/chinalbr0802-01.htm https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/chinalbr02/chinalbr0802-01....: > At no point over the last twenty-five years, despite widespread unemployment, serious labor law violations, and appallingly dangerous working conditions, has the ACFTU attempted to distance itself from the CCP leadership or to question its policies. It has not defended the principle of independent union organizing, and it has never spoken out against laws and regulations routinely employed to justify imprisonment of labor activists who organize outside its aegis. ---- > Given the level of disunity within the Chinese government, a useful answer to that question would really need to break it down to the personal allegiances of the decision-makers. The Communist party is united enough to make that irrelevant to the question of who controls Huawei in the contexts where it's typically posed.
- yorwba 7y ago
  > What do you mean by that? By that I mean that there's no need to trace ownership to the trade union and conclude that because independent trade unions aren't allowed, the company can't be independent either. You could just go straight to Article 17 of the Company Law of the People's Republic of China [1], which reads "The grass-root organizations of the Communist Party of China in companies shall carry out their activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China." So no Chinese company could possibly be independent, trade union or not. That's on paper anyway. In practice, Chinese companies undermine each other and government agencies all the time, instead of harmoniously cooperating to fulfill the CCP's grand plan. Similarly, membership in the ACFTU doesn't tell you anything about the actual power dynamics. [1] http://english.court.gov.cn/2016-04/14/content_24532981_2.htm http://english.court.gov.cn/2016-04/14/content_24532981_2.ht...