Second paragraph of third chapter ("Pulling Ourselves Out of the Mud", by Yao Yiyu):

In 2001, we managed to develop and launch our next-generation switch, iNET, in a stunningly short time. What awaited us was not ovation or praise, but harsh reality: the customer did not want our product in their network.

A couple of weeks ago I read the companion volume to this, Huawei Stories: Pioneers, which looked at the geographical challenges faced by a Chinese company on its way to becoming a global phenomenon, and really enjoyed it. This volume concentrates on the technical challenges that have faced Huawei, and the difficulties in overcoming them (and they were almost all overcome); it's therefore a set of true-life Heroic Engineer tales. To be honest, I am not sufficiently well versed in mobile phone technology to appreciate the advances that were being made. There is one very entertaining chapter whose narrator, Xiong Ying, drives around his region of China looking for thunderstorms to test his equipment's resistance to lightning strikes. Another team testing equipment in Tibet found that it was affected by sunspots. The one non-Chinese writer, Renato Lombardi, tells the story of setting up Huawei's microwave research centre in Milan, and the process of cultural blending that was needed. But in general I preferred the first book. Still, you can get it here.

This was my top unread book by non-white authors. Next on that list is Seychelles: The Saga of a Small Nation Navigating the Cross-Currents of a Big World, by Sir James Mancham.