The secret trip to Argentina that Meng, the princess of Huawei, could never do

“I have a preference for Argentina,” he said, more than once, Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei. When the businessman who leads the telecommunications giant that the White House pointed to as a threat to national security arrived in the country in 2018, he did not imagine that he would be trapped in a sordid novel of intrigues, power games and diplomacy.

The G20 Summit was the event of the year: it was on all television channels, on the front page of newspapers and news portals. But Ren, a man who moves far from the reflectors, knew how to avoid the inquisitive lenses of the cameras and changed the asphalt gray of Buenos Aires for the hills of Bariloche.

Already settled in the comfort of his room, he knew that something was wrong. In none of the scenarios that he outlined in milliseconds did he think of a hypothesis as painful as it was bleak. Until then, The competition between the United States and China for global power had hit Huawei hard, which the White House accused of being an arm of the People’s Liberation Army to spy on other countries. Ren had been brought into the ring to fight Mike Tyson, but the business world was ruthless and he was used to it.

Now the conflict became personal. Their daughter had been arrested.

The two largest economies in the world, The United States and China had declared a trade war, with the imposition of multimillion dollar trade tariffs. After years of a foreign policy towards Beijing based on “engagement”, the search to incorporate it into international organizations with the idea that this would culminate in its democratization, Washington recalculated and embraced the competition of great powers. The bipartisan consensus in Washington was unanimous: China was the only nation with the ability and the will to compete with Washington for international supremacy.

Huawei was at the center of the storm. The White House indicated that the leadership of that company in the provision of networks of 5G (Fifth Generation Mobile Telephony) threatened the national security of the United States. Therefore, it began an offensive to delay its global growth, pressuring allies to veto the company in their respective countries and blocking its supply of semiconductors.

The offensive paid off. Not only did major U.S. partners close their doors to Huawei, but their revenues plummeted as well. As reported by the company, cyesterday they were 32% in the first three quarters of 2021, especially due to a steep drop in cell phone sales due to sanctions imposed by the White House.

The United States did not provide proof of its allegations, but it prohibited Huawei from acquiring crucial components such as microchips and prevented it from using Google’s Android operating system.

On December 30, 2018, the cameras zoomed in on Mauricio Macri’s tears at the Colón Theater. The Argentine press was dazed by the organization of the biggest diplomatic event of the year. The G20 summit had converted for 48 hours to Buenos Aires in the international geopolitical capital. The main leaders of the world were gathered in Costa Salguero, while the Sherpas negotiated the final document.