The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that corporate documents raise doubts about Huawei's claims to be an employee-owned company which operates independently of Chinese political influence, two American scholars argue in a new analysis. The Globe's Nathan VanderKlippe writes that Christopher Balding at Fulbright University Vietnam, and Donald Clarke at George Washington University law school analyzed Huawei's ownership in a working paper released this week. Huawei is formally owned by a holding company which in turn is owned by just two shareholders: company founder Ren Zhengfei, with nearly 1.14 per cent, while the remainder belongs to an entity called the "Union of Huawei Investment & Holding Co. Ltd." That union, the researchers say, appears to be a trade-union committee, and such entities in China are part of a system ultimately controlled by the Communist Party. "Thus, if Huawei Holding is 99-per-cent owned by a genuine Chinese-style trade union operating the way trade unions in China are supposed to operate, it is in a non-trivial sense state-owned," they conclude. "They're flat-out not being accurate in what they're representing about the role that employees play," Prof. Balding adds.