Rebirth of England.

Chapter 911 Joint Venture
Yes, in May of this year, "Citizen Four", that is, Snowden, expressed his intention to meet Laura Poitras in an encrypted email - he chose Hong Kong, China as the meeting place.

Because the meeting place chosen by Snowden was in a foreign country far away from Europe, Laura was worried about safety and prepared to travel with others.

So Laura Poitras contacted her friend who had attended the event with her before, Glenn Greenwald, a senior reporter for the British Guardian.

Of course, her movements were also reported back to Barron by his intelligence agency, which was keeping an eye on her whereabouts.

After telling Glenn Greenwald about "Citizenfour", Laura discovered that Glenn had also received encrypted emails from him before.

However, Glenn thought the other party's words were a bit "weird" at the time, and he knew nothing about encrypted communications, so he did not reply to the other party.

Eventually, Laura, Glenn and a senior editor from The Guardian flew to Hong Kong to meet with "Citizenfour".

So, after the two sides met, Laura and her team recorded the interview with Snowden, and later released a documentary about the "Prism" program under the name "Citizenfour".

At the same time, The Guardian was the first to report the content of the "Prism" program revealed by Snowden, which caused an uproar around the world.

After all, according to the Prism program revealed by Snowden, it also includes the content of the United States eavesdropping on the heads of state of its allies, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, German Chancellor Merkel, Brazilian President Rousseff and as many as 35 other leaders who appeared on the National Security Agency's eavesdropping list.

Later, Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, citing documents provided by Snowden, disclosed that the National Security Agency of the United States monitored 2009 foreign leaders in 122 and built a database specifically for storing information on foreign leaders, including 300 reports on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

It can be said that after the Prism Gate broke out, the global reaction was very exciting.

Snowden, the instigator, began his escape career. According to information Barron obtained from the British intelligence agency, in order to capture Snowden, the United States even sent a 16-member special agent team to Lian Island, and the special forces company stationed there received a collective first-class merit.

Barron could also guess why the American intelligence agencies were so interested in him - after all, he knew about the American "Prism" program in his previous life, so from the very beginning, he attached great importance to preventing being monitored.

Not only would all the places he visited be thoroughly searched by his security team first, but his daily communications would only be conducted using a specially made phone from Honor Electronics, through O2 Telecom, which he controlled.

Moreover, important conversations were conducted through encrypted satellite phones. It can be said that although the US intelligence agencies are able to eavesdrop on leaders of many countries, eavesdropping on Barron is much more difficult.

……

On June 6, O10 Germany finally completed the acquisition of E-Plus, the German subsidiary of the Dutch KPN Group.

This time, O2 Telecom's bid was 80 billion euros, which exceeded Telefonica's bid and therefore ultimately won the competition.

After completing the acquisition of E-Plus, its business will be integrated into O2 Germany, giving O2 Germany more than 4000 million users, accounting for nearly half of Germany's total population, surpassing Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone Germany to become the telecom operator with the largest number of users in Germany.

O2 Telecom has become the second largest telecom operator in Europe after Vodafone through years of development and acquisitions. After Barron returned to London, he met the boss of Huawei again at his home.

"I still remember the first time we met. It was already ten years ago, Mr. Ren."

It can be said that compared with that time, whether it is Barron, Boss Ren, or Huawei, there have been very big changes now. Therefore, when talking about this matter, Barron couldn't help but sigh.

"Yes, Your Highness. At that time, Huawei wanted to develop the British and European markets. The first cooperation in the UK was with your O2 Telecom. Until now, O2 Telecom has become one of the largest telecommunications companies in Europe. We have always been close partners, and we are full of gratitude for this."

"But the situation is different now. As you know, although O2 Telecom is larger, it also covers markets in many countries. Our cooperation with Huawei also faces more challenges..."

"You must have some plans when you meet me today. I would like to hear the details."

The conversation between the two was conducted in Chinese. After all, Boss Ren was already very accustomed to the British Duke's fluent Chinese.

"You should be aware of the recent Prism scandal, Mr. Ren. This can explain the main reason why Huawei encountered difficulties in the American market. However, in the European market, it is different..."

Barron handed a document to the other party and continued:

"After the debt crisis, Europe's economic recovery is slower than expected. Accordingly, European telecom equipment manufacturers need the EU to provide them with protection. In this case, not only O2 Telecom, but other telecom companies are facing pressure to give priority to European equipment suppliers..."

Boss Ren looked through the information Barron handed over and frowned slightly.

Yes, Huawei has become one of the world's largest telecom equipment suppliers and is able to provide customers with the most cost-effective products and the best services, but so what? After all, the EU can subsidize local companies, and in many assessments, the choice of telecom companies' equipment purchases will be taken into account...

This information includes some specific policies and related information of the European Union.

"I am willing to continue cooperating with Huawei. After all, our cooperation has been very satisfactory before. But in view of the current situation, I have a suggestion..."

At the beginning, Barron completed the acquisition of British Marconi Company through Rich23 Capital and merged it into Huawei, thus holding a 15% stake in Huawei.

Baron's proposal is that Rich23 Capital withdraw its holdings in Huawei and convert them into holdings in Huawei's European joint venture.

That is to say, a joint venture will be established based on Huawei's European branch (established on the basis of the original Marconi company), in which Barron holds 51% of the shares and Huawei holds 49% of the shares. Then this joint venture will be regarded as a European company.

In this way, O2 Telecom and other telecom companies' cooperation with Huawei's European joint venture will no longer be restricted by relevant EU policies.

(End of this chapter)