Huawei, Controversial Chinese Tech Firm That Once Partnered With Bain Capital, Slammed By GOP

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/07/huawei-bain-capital-3com_n_1947103.html

Huawei, Controversial Chinese Tech Firm That Once Partnered With Bain Capital, Slammed By GOP

...Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the Republican chairman of the panel, delivered that warning bluntly. "If I were an American company today -- and I'll tell you this as the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers' privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America," Rogers told "60 Minutes."

One U.S. company that could've benefited from Rogers' warning is Bain Capital, the private equity giant founded by Mitt Romney, which still pays the GOP presidential nominee millions each year. Romney has made his promise to "get tough" on China a central element of his economic message, though the company he started has made it easier for China to get tough on its own citizens.

In 2007 and 2008, Bain Capital partnered with Huawei -- pronounced Wa-way -- to take electronics manufacturer 3Com private in a $2.2 billion deal. The Bush administration raised national security concerns and refused to approve the deal. Huawei is closely tied to the Chinese military, and was founded by a former army major.

Two years earlier, Bain had tried to buy its way into a joint partnership between 3Com and Huawei, but 3Com fended it off. Bain didn't give up. Later in 2008, it made a bid for Huawei's mobile handset unit, but the company decided not to sell. In December 2011, Bain finally got its piece of China's telecom world, buying the surveillance company Uniview from the joint venture it had failed to join. ...