On March 11, 2019, as part of the “Transatlantic Exchanges Series”, The Bridge Tank and France-Amériques co-organised a conference on “China-United States: further than the hot and cold about trade, what rivalry regarding investment and innovation?”

Joël Ruet, President of The Bridge Tank, Jean-Claude Beaujour, Vice-President of France-Amériques & Board Member of The Bridge Tank, and François Quentin, former Deputy Director-General of Thales and former Chairman of the Executive Board of Huawei France, were the conference’s keynote speakers.

François Quentin presented Huawei as a company with fantastic growth, especially in the last twenty years. However, Western countries and consumers tend to remain critical towards this group, despite a sales policy centred around customers and great attention paid to suppliers, he argued. Yearly bonuses are notably paid through stock exchange shares, and former employees are considered to be highly employable by many other companies.

In addition to the founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, three administrators, sometimes referred to as three CEOs, share among themselves the direction of the three main parts of the company: strategy, operations, and resources & development. Despite it being in the common interest for Huawei and the United States to stay in good terms, the company could make itself independent from Google and other American firms if the Sino-American trade war was to continue. Along with other factors, the American position could lead Huawei to increasingly centralise its activity in China.