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House of Huawei

The Secret History of China's Most Powerful Company

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House of Huawei

By: Eva Dou
Narrated by: Nancy Wu
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“Authoritative… a tale that sits at the heart of the most significant geopolitical relationship today.”–Financial Times

“There’s probably no better account of China’s rise to economic dominance as seen through the prism of a single company.”–The Wall Street Journal

ABOUT THE BOOK

The untold story of the mysterious company that shook the world.

On the coast of southern China, an eccentric entrepreneur spent three decades steadily building an obscure telecom company into one of the world’s most powerful technological empires with hardly anyone noticing. This all changed in December 2018, when the detention of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies’ female scion, sparked an international hostage standoff, poured fuel on the US-China trade war, and suddenly thrust the mysterious company into the global spotlight.

In House of Huawei, Washington Post technology reporter Eva Dou pieces together a remarkable portrait of Huawei’s reclusive founder, Ren Zhengfei, and how he built a sprawling corporate empire—one whose rise Western policymakers have become increasingly obsessed with halting. Based on wide-ranging interviews and painstaking archival research, House of Huawei dissects the global web of power, money, influence, surveillance, bloodshed, and national glory that Huawei helped to build—and that has also ensnared it.

©2025 Eva Dou (P)2025 Penguin Audio Business International Relations Politics & Government Professionals & Academics Trades & Tariffs China War Imperial Japan

Critic reviews

“Authoritative… a tale that sits at the heart of the most significant geopolitical relationship today.”–Financial Times

“A comprehensive and instructive account of [Huawei's] rapid ascent to become ‘China’s most powerful company’... There’s probably no better account of China’s rise to economic dominance as seen through the prism of a single company.”–The Wall Street Journal

“Dou’s command of her subject is indisputable and her book is determinedly even-handed… The intricate reporting of Huawei, in all its ambiguity and complexity, sheds much light on the murky nature of modern geopolitics. The people who shout the loudest about Huawei don’t know more than anyone else about it. Eva Dou does.”–The Guardian
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The book does a good job of weaving the history of the company with the rise of China as a global economic powerhouse. It focuses on critical instances where the Chinese government understood they needed to directly support emerging technology companies. The book also does a good job of highlighting how the CCP appears to infiltrate and steer private companies that they can then use to push their agenda. It doesn’t openly state it, but it accurately describes the inconsistencies between Huawei’s stated policies and positions and what they were actually doing while growing their business around the world, particularly in emerging markets and conflict zones.

Overall a good book. My only problem was following the story along while trying to connect the Chinese names which I imagine is difficult for most people with western sounding names. I did manage to connect the dots when a person appeared throughout the book, so I managed to get the reason for including the main characters in the story and how some of the supporting characters played into the plot.

Good description of how China understood the critical importance of telecom technology before other countries in the west

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Eva did a good job of shedding light on the inner workings of a fairly secretive company. Having been in the telecom industry and done business with Huawei living in China I’d say this depiction of their culture and operating model is fairly accurate.

Balanced and well researched view of Huawei

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The writing was dry and the narrator uninspired but the story was incredibly interesting. There isn’t a conclusive position taken regarding Huawei; only a thorough deep dive into the evidence.

Hard to recommend but I am very glad I read it.

Fascinating parallels with the TikTok ban and Deep Seek

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The book appears to try to provide a balanced history of Huawei yet lets existing bias slip in, as if the author was always thinking about what Huawei would say about the book once it was out. All criticism is handled with a velvet glove and with added comments as to how other companies have done the same thing. Still, it does give a pretty good job of telling the story of the House of Huawei as the title very directly says.

Comprehensive but can't help but let bias creep in

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Very well organized. Impressive and fascinating to listen to. So many pieces come together. Thank you to the author. An excellent work.

Excellent work

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Very interesting read and provides great insight into China and Huawei. Not as enthralling of a story as some other memoirs/company exposes, but a worthy read

Enjoyed the book

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