Huawei CEO proposes negotiations with Washington

Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has proposed negotiations with the US Justice Department to resolve all outstanding issues between Washington and the telecom giant, according to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

In a column published online on Tuesday, headlined Huawei Has a Plan to Help End Its War With Trump, Friedman wrote that Ren made his comments during an interview with Friedman.

"If the United States reaches out to us in good faith and promises to change their irrational approach to Huawei, then we are open to a dialogue," Ren told Friedman. "The US shouldn't try to destroy Huawei over something trivial. If the US feels we have done something wrong, then we can discuss it in good faith and find a reasonable solution."

"There are no restrictions on what we would be willing to discuss with the Department of Justice," Friedman quoted Ren as saying.

If the US still doesn't trust Huawei to install its equipment across the US at scale, said Ren, then he is also ready, for the first time, to license the entire Huawei 5G platform to any US company that wants to manufacture, install and operate it completely independent of Huawei.

Ren said that Huawei is "open to sharing our 5G technologies and techniques with US companies, so that they can build up their own 5G industry. That would create a balanced situation between China, the US and Europe".

But he added: "The US side has to accept us at some level for that to happen." US companies "can also modify our 5G technologies to meet their security requirements". They can even "change the software code. In that case, the US will be assured of information security".

Microsoft President Brad Smith told Bloomberg Businessweek magazine on Monday that when his company pressed regulators for an explanation of the Huawei ban, "oftentimes, what we get in response is, 'Well, if you knew what we knew, you would agree with us.' And our answer is, 'Great, show us what you know, so we can decide for ourselves.'"

"If Huawei really is a bad actor, let's get the proof out there and blacklist the hell out of it. If it's not so clear, the (President) Trump team should at least explore Ren's offer to see if there is a pathway for Huawei to assure American intelligence experts and demonstrate good behavior," Friedman wrote.