(FreedomBeacon.com)- The founder of Chinese telecom company Huawei warned in an internal memo of a “very painful” decade to come for the company.
While a committed member of the Chinese Communist Party, Ren Zhengfei’s memo, which leaked to the media last week, strikes a very different tone from the hopeful propaganda from Chinese officials, who have argued that the current economic downturn is temporary and a strong recovery is poised to turn things around.
In his memo, Ren warned that as the global economy continues its decline, the next decade “will be a very painful historical period.” He suggested that Huawei will have to “reduce any overly optimistic expectations” and “make survival the most important guideline.”
He admitted that the purpose of his memo was to “send a chill to everyone,” so that they begin to “talk about the realities.”
For the first half of 2022, Huawei’s revenue declined by 5.9 percent resulting in a 9.8 percent loss in profit margins.
Last Tuesday, Ren’s memo was leaked to Yicai, a Shanghai-based financial media group. From there, it traveled like wildfire throughout Chinese social media, even becoming a trending topic on China’s Weibo platform, where it received over 100 million shares and comments.
While some of the commenters blamed Huawei’s troubles on US sanctions, others criticized Ren and the company’s management for running Huawei into the ground.
But the most common response to the leaked memo appeared to be one of concern since Ren is both knowledgeable and well connected to the ruling regime, with many believing his warnings should be considered a wake-up call for the rest of the Chinese economy.
One commenter on Weibo pointed out that when billionaires are willing to risk the wrath of the regime by speaking out, their warnings tend to be prescient. The commenter, whose reply was quoted by the UK Guardian, cited property tycoon Wang Shi who predicted the Chinese real estate crisis years before it happened.
