By Eva Dou
BEIJING --Tsinghua Holdings Ltd., the parent company of the chip
maker attempting what could be China's largest takeover of a U.S.
company, hopes to expand its U.S. partnerships beyond hardware to
companies like Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp., an executive
said.
Tsinghua Holdings Chairman Xu Jinghong told reporters Tuesday
that his company had met with representatives from Facebook and
Microsoft and hoped to partner with them. It wasn't immediately
clear when the meetings took place, and Mr. Xu said that the
meetings were preliminary introductions, with no discussion of
concrete collaborations.
Tsinghua Holdings is the research and investment unit of China's
premier Tsinghua University. It has close ties to senior government
officials in Beijing through the school's alumni network. The
company has recently gained interest from Silicon Valley firms due
to its political influence, amid difficult business conditions in
China for U.S. companies.
U.S. tech companies have felt a chill over business in China
following disclosures by former U.S. security contractor Edward
Snowden in 2013 that Washington allegedly used the country's
technology products to spy on foreign governments.
Intel Corp. bought a stake in Tsinghua Holdings' high-tech
subsidiary Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd. in September, and Hewlett-Packard
Co. sold a majority stake of its China networking business to the
Chinese company in May. Tsinghua Unigroup is seeking to acquire
U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc., in what would be the
biggest Chinese overseas takeover if successful, The Wall Street
Journal reported last month.
"We hope to cooperate with more outstanding companies," said Mr.
Xu on Tuesday. "In the future, we hope to cooperate with Microsoft,
Facebook."
In response to a question about whether he was already in
discussion with Microsoft and Facebook on potential partnerships,
Mr. Xu said, "I can't reply. We have been in contact, but we have
not discussed concrete business. We all hope to first get to know
each other."
Microsoft declined to comment. Facebook didn't immediately reply
to a request for comment.
Uber Technology Chief Executive Travis Kalanick visited Tsinghua
Unigroup in June, according to the latter company's website. Uber
didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Xu said he's seen increased interest from Silicon Valley in
the past year, after Tsinghua Unigroup was built into China's
largest chip maker through acquisitions. He said it has been a
reversal from a decade ago, when he couldn't get meetings with U.S.
executives.
"To build good partnerships, you have to be strong yourself
first," he said. "If you aren't strong, no one will want to partner
with you."
Facebook is blocked in China, but has been seeking a return
route into the world's largest market of Internet users. Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg famously conducted a question-and-answer
session at Tsinghua University in Chinese in October.
Write to Eva Dou at eva.dou@wsj.com
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