华为怎样才能突破海外禁区

    华为（Huawei）到底有多可怕？这家中国电信设备制造商一直面临着来自外国政界的阻力。因为他们担心华为会成为中国政府的特洛伊木马。

    最近，一部分英国国会议员称，华为在大臣们不知情的情况下提供了关键基础设施；美国与澳大利亚政界人士已经阻止了华为获得关键合约。政治麻烦需要多年时间才能解决，但华为可以采取措施缓解外国政要的忧虑。

    华为的增长并没有受到这些事件的影响。自2008年以来，这家公司的收入以每年12%的平均速度增长，而且其中三分之二的收入都来自海外市场。而据电信行业协会（Telecoms Industry Association）统计，美国市场电信开支虽然高达1.1万亿美元，但华为在美国市场的销售却仅占公司总销售额的15%。此外，由于美国是对全球科技基调的制定者，因此华为恐惧症可能会蔓延到其他国家的企业和政府。

    而这种恐惧症的根源在于中国。虽然华为声称公司没有军方背景，但中国政府特别不透明而且拥有强大的权力。同时，中国大公司进行融资所依赖的大银行均属国有，因此，很难想象华为这样的大公司会拒绝听命于中国的执政党？而且，外国政府要想访问华为公司在中国大陆总部内存储的数据必将遭遇重重阻力。所以，这种不安是有理由的——不过这种不安不应该只针对华为，而是应该针对能够接触到重要数据的所有中国公司。

    并且，网络从其自身的性质而言就是脆弱的。 “后门”导致数据被泄露的风险，虽然只存在于理论上。但举证责任应该由供应商承担。没有任何系统是绝对安全的，因此公司和政府只能尽量减少被入侵的可能性。而如果供应商来自于以网络间谍活动著称的国家，抵制这些厂商在逻辑上具有一定的合理性。

    实际上，这种情况并非中国独有：美国政府要求它最大的互联网公司提供用户数据所引发的愤怒就是最好的证明。既然美国能强制美国的公司提交数据，中国自然也可以。如果企业界对总体安全问题赋予越来越多的经济价值，则华为凭借低廉的价格建立起来的竞争优势将受到侵蚀。

    华为改变不了自己的中国血统，也改变不了人们对网络安全的普遍担忧。但它可以将公司治理作为改进的方向。虽然华为三分之一的员工和三分之二的收入都在海外市场，但它在最新年报中所列的45名高层委员会成员全都是中国人。每一个人在公司任职时间都超过了12年。

    华为的权力也非常集中：公司98%的股份由员工持有——同样全是中国人，这批股份被作为一个整体，结果使公司创始人任正非单独持有的1.2%的股份，拥有不成比例的重要性。人们认为华为是一家以爱国主义和利润双重驱动的公司，而邀请几位大名鼎鼎的外国科技界名流加入由中国人组成的董事会，向外国员工发放股份等做法，对于改变这种观念极有帮助。

    How scary is Huawei? The Chinese telecom equipment maker has met resistance from politicians who fear it could be used as a Trojan horse by the Chinese government.

    Most recently a group of UK parliamentarians complained the group supplied critical infrastructure without ministers' knowledge; American and Australian politicians have already blocked Huawei from key contracts. The political tribulations will take years to resolve, but there are ways to dial down the fear.

    It's not that Huawei's growth has suffered. The company's revenue has increased by 12% a year on average since 2008, and two-thirds of it comes from outside China. Still, the United States represents just 15% of the group's total sales, despite representing a market with $1.1 trillion of telecoms spending in 2012, according to the Telecoms Industry Association. Moreover, since America sets the tone for global technology, Huawei-phobia could filter down to businesses

    The main reason for that phobia is China. While Huawei says it has no links to the military, China's government is particularly untransparent and powerful. Even the big banks on which China's large companies depend for financing are state-owned, and it's unthinkable that a company as big as Huawei could resist an order from the Communist Party. Equally, foreign governments would struggle to access data stored in the company's mainland headquarters. So some disquiet is justified -- though the same should apply to any Chinese company with access to important data.

    Networks, too, are by their nature vulnerable. The risks from "back doors" through which data can be plucked out, remain theoretical. But the burden of proof is on the supplier. No system is perfectly secure, so companies and governments can only work on reducing the probability of an incursion. Avoiding a foreign supplier whose home country is known for international cyber-espionage has some logic.

    True, China isn't alone: witness the furor over U.S. government requests for user data from some of the country's biggest internet companies. But if America can strong-arm companies into handing over data, so can China. If companies put more and more financial value on security overall, it is likely to erode the advantage Huawei gets from being cheaper than its rivals.

    Huawei can't do much about its Chinese origins, or broader concerns about network security. Corporate governance, however, is an area where it could use a major upgrade. While a third of its employees and two-thirds of its revenue are outside the People's Republic, all 45 of the people who staff Huawei's top committees, as listed in its latest annual report, are Chinese. Every one of them has served at the company for more than 12 years.

    Power is concentrated, too: the 98% of shares owned by employees -- again, all Chinese -- are treated as a single block, which gives founder Ren Zhengfei's separate 1.2% stake disproportionate significance. Popping a couple of big-name foreign tech heavyweights on the Chinese board, and giving foreign employees a stake, would go a long way to combating perceptions that Huawei is fuelled by patriotism as much as profit.