Liu Chuanzhi sent an internal letter in response to the 5G incident: Chinese companies should unite and not be provoked by outsiders

Leifeng.com: On May 16, Lenovo Holdings Chairman and Lenovo Group founder Liu Chuanzhi, Lenovo Group Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing, and Lenovo Holdings President Zhu Linan jointly issued an internal open letter to clarify Lenovo's practices in the voting process for 5G standards, calling on Chinese companies to unite and not be provoked by outsiders.

Liu Chuanzhi said that in order to verify the events of the 3GPP meeting, he specifically spoke with Huawei's Ren Zhengfei by phone. "Mr. Ren told me that there was nothing wrong with Lenovo's approach in the voting process for the 5G standard, and thanked Lenovo for its support for Huawei. We have always believed that Chinese companies should unite and not be provoked by outsiders."

This open letter is in response to the "Lenovo did not vote in favor of the 5G coding plan led by Huawei" incident which fermented on a large scale since the evening of May 10.

This incident has attracted widespread attention in the industry. Leifeng.com (public account: Leifeng.com) (public account: Leifeng.com) immediately contacted Huawei for confirmation, but Huawei did not respond. It was not until the evening of the 11th that Huawei responded to the outside world.

At 21:49 on the evening of May 11, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (China)'s official Weibo account "Huawei China" posted a Weibo post stating that "At the 3GPP meeting in November 2016, Huawei and 55 other companies (including Lenovo and Motorola Mobility) jointly proposed Polar codes as the coding mechanism for the control channel based on extensive performance evaluation and analysis and comparison, and the proposal was approved. Lenovo and its subsidiary Motorola Mobility both voted in favor of the proposal. So far, the 5G channel coding technology solution has been completely determined, with Polar codes as the coding scheme for the control channel and LDPC codes as the coding scheme for the data channel."

Huawei also interacted with Lenovo in the comment section below the Weibo post, "Thank you Lenovo Group and its Motorola Mobility subsidiary for voting in favor of the Polar code solution at the voting meeting on 5G standards held by 3GPP (Generation Partnership Project). Let us work together for Chinese companies to continue to make breakthroughs in international standards! @Lenovo."

Huawei's response indirectly confirms what was stated in the Leifeng.com article "Recovering the Truth about Lenovo's Failure to Vote in Favor of Huawei's 5G Standard", namely that at the 3GPP meeting in November, Lenovo and Moto voted in favor of Huawei's Polar code encoding scheme. The meeting decided that Huawei's Polar code would become the encoding scheme for the control channel in the eMBB scenario.

Whether it is Lenovo or Huawei, the responses were all in response to the meeting in November 2016. In fact, there were huge differences in the October meeting, so the November meeting was held.

Channels are divided into data channels and control channels. The control channel transmits control information, and the data channel transmits data. Different schemes can be used for the control channel and the data channel respectively. At the coding level, the code length can be divided into long codes and short codes. Short codes are more commonly used, and the frequency of long codes is relatively low. Long codes and short codes can also use different coding schemes. An insider told Leifeng.com that in the meeting in October, Lenovo and Moto both voted for Qualcomm's LDPC scheme. Many other Chinese manufacturers opposed the use of Qualcomm's scheme for both long and short codes. In the end, only Qualcomm's scheme for long codes was reached.

As you can imagine, there was some gambling under the table between the two meetings.

People familiar with the matter revealed that during this period, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology convened a meeting with Chinese manufacturers to brief them on the matter.

At the meeting in November, Huawei's Polar code was approved by a large margin as the coding scheme for the control channel in the eMBB scenario. Huawei's Polar was actually a compromise in being recognized in the international standard. LDPC code became the coding scheme for the data channel in the eMBB scenario, not limited to long codes, but also short codes. The price of Huawei's Polar code scheme being successfully passed is that Qualcomm's LDPC code has also made a further step in the standard.

The incident also attracted the attention of Lenovo Group Chairman Yang Yuanqing. According to Sina Technology, Yang Yuanqing forwarded a media article titled "Two years ago, what did Lenovo do in the 5G vote?" on May 12, which described the 3GPP incident in detail. Yang Yuanqing commented: "It was originally a vote on technical standards, but it was turned into a patriotic topic two years later. Well, patriotism, we can definitely stand the test! But the question is, if the technical standards are really labeled as patriotic, can they still be unimpeded in the international market?"

An insider told Leifeng.com that "In fact, standards organizations like 3GPP have never considered (technical standards) from the perspective of cost factors, but from the perspective of the three-way struggle between China, Europe and the United States. For example, why there were two 4G standards and three 3G standards, it was actually a political game among the three parties.

The following is the full text of the internal open letter:

Dear Lenovo comrades:

In recent days, I noticed from the articles forwarded to me by my friends that there have suddenly appeared some articles that directly pointed at Lenovo and used quite vicious words, and even put the hat of "selling out the country" on Lenovo. The voices are getting louder and louder, causing Lenovo's reputation to be seriously challenged. This shocked me! Since I no longer hold any position in Lenovo Group in recent years, I don't know the whole story of this matter, so I conducted a detailed investigation with Yuanqing and several senior executives of Lenovo Group, including Lenovo representatives who attended the 3GPP meeting at that time. I, Yuanqing and Zhu Linan, President of Lenovo Holdings, believe that we need to explain the actual situation and the results of the investigation to all Lenovo employees.

This happened in 2016 when voting on the 5G channel coding standard. During the voting process, Lenovo Group representatives followed two principles: one was the basic principle of maintaining the interests of their own company; the other was the higher principle of focusing on the overall situation. What is the overall situation? The overall situation is the overall interests of the country and the industry.

3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) is the world's most influential communications standardization organization. It mainly coordinates various organizations to formulate standards in the communications field. It is a very professional academic organization, and its meetings are purely technical discussions. In the first round of voting for the 5G eMBB solution organized by 3GPP (RAN1#86bis), Lenovo Group chose the LDPC technology solution based on its own previous technology and patent reserves. In the second round of voting (RAN1#87), we comprehensively considered the country's overall industrial cooperation, innovation and development, and resolutely chose the Polar code solution for which Lenovo did not have much technical accumulation before. Throughout the process, I personally believe that there is no problem with Lenovo's voting principles and execution!

To verify this conclusion, I called Huawei's Ren Zhengfei, who told me that there was nothing wrong with Lenovo's approach in the voting process for the 5G standard, and expressed his gratitude for Lenovo's support for Huawei. We both agreed that Chinese companies should unite and not be provoked by outsiders.

An incident in the technology field was suddenly brought up nearly two years later and slandered as treason. Is it an accident? Or is it being exploited? All these abnormal phenomena make us ponder.

Because all Lenovo people understand how hard it is to win the Lenovo brand!

In 1984, a group of researchers who had no idea about the market, with the dream of serving the country through industry, began their difficult journey to establish a domestic PC brand. Several generations of Lenovo people have gone through many ups and downs along the way, devoted their youth to this cause, with sweat, tears, and even blood. It is with such desperate efforts that Lenovo, a national brand, has been created today. This is the result of decades of hard work by all Lenovo employees!

In the early 1990s, China had no computer industry of its own. Facing the massive attack of a large number of foreign companies, Lenovo, like a small sampan, took risks and competed with these giants. It used the money earned from acting as an agent for foreign products to insist on the research and development of domestic computers, resolutely raised the banner of national industry, and finally defeated the international giants. Only in this way can domestic computers enter thousands of households and all walks of life, and only in this way can China's information industry develop! It has also become a solid foundation for the great development of China's Internet and mobile Internet today!

In 2004, Lenovo acquired IBM's global PC business. While the outside world encouraged our courage, they were not optimistic about the results of the acquisition. But we were determined to do it! China needs more companies to continue to grow and stand tall among the nations of the world. After several twists and turns and life-and-death struggles, in 2013, Lenovo Group's personal computer market share became the world's first, bringing honor to Chinese companies!

This is Lenovo's gene, which has never changed despite all the hardships. Why? It's not just about business, because in our hearts, we have the belief of fighting for honor, which is our greatest support!

For more than 30 years, Lenovo has shared the same destiny with China's development; for more than 30 years, Lenovo has started from China and moved towards the world, turning a national brand into a global brand and providing technology and services to more than 160 countries and regions around the world, fully demonstrating that only what is national is global.

Lenovo's history is a microcosm of the development of China's national computer industry from scratch, from weak to strong, and from China to the world. All Lenovo people will remember history and pass on beliefs. How can the facts be distorted? How can Lenovo's honor be trampled on by others?

All colleagues of Lenovo Group, we are facing severe challenges today. If we make mistakes, we should face the reality with a very humble and open attitude and find ways to solve the problems. In the process of Lenovo's growth over 30 years, we have gone through many hardships and survived many life-threatening situations. We rely on unity and solidarity. Today, we cannot allow anyone to throw dirty water at us, or even label us as "traitors". If it is purely coincidental, it will be fine. But if it is intentional, trying to impact our morale, trample on the dignity of Lenovo people, and hit the pride of a national brand, all of us must not and will never tolerate it!

Brothers and sisters, it is time for us to stand up. In this bright and clear world, if tens of thousands of employees cannot protect themselves, what kind of company are we running? We are just a bunch of losers! Lenovo’s cadres should take positive actions, and all colleagues should actively offer suggestions and advice. We should unite as one, share the same hatred and fight to the death to win this battle to defend Lenovo’s honor!

Liu Chuanzhi, Chairman of Legend Holdings and Founder of Lenovo Group

and

Lenovo Group Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing

Zhu Linan, President of Legend Holdings

May 16, 2018

• Restoring the truth about Lenovo not voting in favor of Huawei's 5G standards