this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Employees at some Chinese ministries must stop using iPhones before the end of September.

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[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Huawei is not a publicly traded company. It's a private company wholly owned by its employees.

[–] Buelldozer 11 points 1 year ago

Huawei may be "owned" by its employees but that isn't the same thing as being controlled by them. Huwaei's structure is extremely unusual and highly opaque.

https://sayari.com/resources/huaweis-ownership-opaque-unusual/

[–] Cruxifux@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s cool as fuck actually

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sure the top 0.1% take home 90% of the profits, so likely not cool.

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really don't have any way to disprove this. There have been two English language studies into Huawei's structure. The earlier one by Balding et al tries to claim that it is employee owned in name only but there is a more recent one by a Japanese university that contradicts this fact. Interestingly neither of the studies raise issues about significatly unequitable profit sharing so there's that. The founder of the company owns about 1% of the shares.

[–] Gsus4@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As a gross generalisation I think large company management in China is broadly equivalent to provincial management (citizens have a say, but there is a hierarchy that responds to the party), is that what the Japanese report said?

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 year ago

The report says this:

First and foremost, as discussed above, employees own the majority of the Huawei’s shares issued, and Huawei has been an “employee-owned company” at least since 2011 according to the available Annual reports show. Second, the highest decision-making body in corporate governance is the Commission, comprised of representatives directly elected by employee shareholders one vote one share. Shareholders' representatives exercise voting rights on important management matters such as the election of directors and auditors, on behalf of employee shareholders. Third, BOD is the highest body in management strategy, business operations and customer satisfaction underneath the Commission. All directors and auditors are elected from employees. Currently, all of them are employee shareholders. Fourth, Ren Zhengfei has a right of veto.75 Ren Zhengfei himself responded to a reporter that “This comes with a time limit and when the new rules76 were passed this limit77 was extended. I do not exercise my right to veto unless there is a major problem78” (Bilibili Z Generation Paradise, 2019)79. In this regard, Jiangxi Sheng, the chief secretary of Huawei's BOD, told reporters at the Southern China Morning Post that “These rules were the Governance Charter” and went on to say that the Governance Charter strictly stipulates the important matters subject to the exercise of the right of veto, citing management personnel and capital increase as two such examples.

It's a representative system within the company. I think this is what you meant.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Surely quite a lot of it is owned by the Chinese government. I thought that was the point of the ban, in China essentially all companies are controlled in some level by the Chinese government, and so no Chinese company can be trusted.

Perhaps some mom and pop equivalent corner shop isn't controlled by the Chinese government, but certainly anything operating internationally will be.

[–] ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's definitely likely that they collaborate with the government in some capacity because of how important Huawei is but that was only one part of why sanctions the enacted. IMO the bigger problem for the US was that Huawei was catching up to western corporations in crucial technologies like 5G so the sanctions were put in place in prevent them from competing. It's just run-of-the-mill protectionism.

[–] lambda_notation@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

They weren't just catching up, the US had nothing, Ericsson had nothing and Huawei had functioning 5G base stations deployed. It took Ericsson another 6? months to get even basic shilled 5G of the ground.