- [Narrator] To many Chinese, there is no better example of success than the tech giant, Huawei.

But it's also at the center of a storm of accusations of intellectual property theft, and ties with the Chinese government.

With all the controversy, it's really easy to overlook something.

This company does innovate.

And it does it in a very different way than we do in the West.

Why is it that a Chinese company is leading the way in building the next generation of the Internet?

There's no doubt that the Chinese Communist Party uses its central authority to force change in ways that aren't possible in Western democracies.

But another key reason is the intense work culture.

It can be brutal, with six-day weeks, and 12-hour days being the norm.

Junior associates, Liu Yehan and Lu Yin, are currently taking part in Huawei's brand of basic training.

Here, all new employees, even office workers, must learn the art of deploying 5G base stations.

(speaking Mandarin) They train for a variety of terrain, from urban centers to the kind of remote mountains that Guizhou province is known for, and that Huawei specializes in reaching.

(speaking Mandarin) The training we saw is hard to describe.

Western observers often called the Huawei company culture "militaristic."

That's probably part of the story.

But there's also something else.

Huawei tries to motivate its employees in ways that probably would not fly in Western industry.

Wang Wenjun leads the training for new recruits.

(speaking Mandarin) - [Interpreter] This is our training area.

I think it's different than the training facilities in most other companies.

Our facilities are outdoors, on top of a mountain.

(gentle music) This slogan, how would I translate it for foreigners?

If you want to take more responsibilities, you must work harder in the training.

- [Narrator] Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei, who started his career in the Chinese army.

He then went on to found Huawei, whose name literally means Chinese achievement.

(speaking Mandarin) What I find interesting is how the posters around campus echo the propaganda style of the Chinese government.

They talk about the importance of sacrifice and hard work in aiding China's technological development.

- A lot of what Beijing tries to do is it is trying to use ideology to corral a lot of the dynamic firms and people in China to pursue the goals that it really wants to have.

(speaking Mandarin) - [Interpreter 2] My job is to train the young people to develop the spirit of bitter struggle.

To train everyone to become full with vigor.

Only when you have suffered, can you understand the sweet things in life.

People live good lives now.

They never have experienced the struggle.

The point of this place is to give them a taste of that.