With all the drama around US attempts to curb Huawei's rise, it's easy to forget that the Chinese giant is hardly an innocent. In this detailed account, the WSJ explores accusations that Huawei has freely stolen technology from companies and individuals and built itself up on other people's ideas. It's worth remembering, as you read this, that according to many credible accounts, Thomas Edison, the now-near-sainted US inventor, was notorious for stealing ideas during his years of building up his empire. Moreover, during America's rise to economic dominance, it was frequently accused of stealing intellectual property from Europe and elsewhere. This is not to say that Huawei should be absolved of wrongdoing. But it is to point out that history is messy and complicated and so are businesses. Huawei has done bad things, but it's not the only corporate offender out there. – Felicity Duncan

Huawei's years long rise is littered with accusations of theft and dubious ethics

By Chuin-Wei Yap and Dan Strumpf in Hong Kong with Dustin Volz, Kate O'Keeffe and Aruna Viswanatha in Washington

(The Wall Street Journal) On a summer evening in 2004, as the Supercomm tech conference in Chicago wound down, a middle-aged Chinese visitor began wending his way through the nearly abandoned booths, popping open million-dollar networking equipment to photograph the circuit boards inside, according to people who were there.

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