Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei has said he would oppose any trade ban imposed on Apple by the Chinese government during an interview in which he slammed the US and Donald Trump.
Two-weeks-ago, the US president signed an executive order banning US companies from buying and selling to foreign companies deemed a security risk. Huawei was then placed on an "entity list" a trade blacklist, over fears its technology could be used for espionage. In the aftermath, companies like Google and ARM sought to comply with the order and announced changes to their respective partnerships with Huawei.
Speaking to Bloomberg, the founder of the Chinese telecoms giant was asked if China should retaliate against US smartphone giant Apple and imposes a similar ban, but Ren said he'd be the first to protest if that happened.
"Apple is the world's leading company," said Ren. "If there was no Apple there would be no mobile internet. If there was no Apple to show us the world, you would not see the beauty of this world. Apple is my teacher. It's advancing in front of us. As a student, why should I oppose my teacher? I would never do that."
Although the US ban has slightly softened, Huawei has seen a ripple effect within its partner ecosystem, most notably from Google, which provides the Android OS for Huawei smartphones, and ARM, which provide chips for the devices.
"The rest of the world decides whether they should work with us based on their own business interests and business positions," Ren said. "If some companies don't want to work with us, it's like a hole in the aeroplane. We're working to fix the hole but the aeroplane is still able to fly. Of the chips we've been using, half are from the US and half we produce ourselves.
"If the US posses further restrictions on us, we will reduce our purchases from the US and produce our own chips. If American companies have permission from Washington to sell to us, we will continue to buy from them."
Ren went on to address the US and president Donald Trump more curtly saying that even if the US wants to buy Huawei products in the future, he may not sell to them.
"We'll ignore Trump, then who will he have to negotiate with?" He said. "If he calls me I may not answer. But he doesn't even have my number. I see his tweets and I think it's laughable because they're self-contradictory.
"We might miss our expected growth target, but we are still growing. Being able to grow in the toughest battle environment just shows how great we are."
