ZTE and corporate cultural fever in China

Editor’s note: A version of this originally appeared on Sacha Cody’s blog and was written by Sacha Cody and Betty Luo. Sacha is an Anthropologist and China Studies scholar based in Shanghai. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University and is currently researching international Chinese enterprises. Betty Luo is a Research Analyst and consultant based in Shanghai.

ZTE’s (and perhaps Huawei’s soon) troubles in the US are interesting for several reasons. In this blog, we focus on a number of themes including the relationship between netizens’ response and the cultural fever of the 1980s.

We first learned of ZTE’s troubles on April 16^th when news broke that the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry (BIS) hit the Chinese telecom equipment maker and consumer electronics manufacturer with a denial of export license. This means that ZTE is unable to purchase US made components they require for their products.

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