In the days after the US government said it would bar Huawei Technologies Co from buying vital American components, the Chinese company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, pulled together an emergency meeting of his top lieutenants at headquarters in Shenzhen.
In a large conference room, the billionaire asked for a report from the head of each business unit on how they would be affected by the Trump administration’s ban, which blocks US companies from supplying everything from semiconductors to software. Their assessments were dire. "We thought we had lost the world,” said Will Zhang, who attended as president of corporate strategy.